Starcraft: Chimaera
by SmurfKiller
Summary: [Chapter Seven Up] Post Brood War. Chimaera, a counterintelligence group, is looking for the headshot to kill a terrorist seeking superweapons, while the UED comes to terms with the only way to eliminate Zerg: destroy the Sector. Please read and review.
1. Chapter 1: Optimal Targets

This novel was in the works almost as long as my first Starcraft novel, Band of Brothers, was. I started shortly after writing Band of Brothers, and was immensely proud Chimaera. Soon, I lost interest, but got back on board because I regretted leaving a story that I had worked on for a massive amount of time. For those of you who enjoyed Band of Brothers, you'll notice a few characters I've created are back; and I hope you enjoy it. I'm more proud of this than any other of my stories.

Starcraft: Chimaera

By: Smurf

_Author's Note: So here it is: a kind of James Bond, Mission Impossible meets Starcraft fanfiction, featuring CHIMAERA. Enjoy!_

_Disclaimer: In no way, shape, or form do I own the Starcraft copyrights, I just have the game and play it way too much. _

Chapter 1: Optimal Targets

The battlecruiser _Legacy of Korhal_ fled the blood drenched space platform with such a haste that it surprised the cloaked Protoss Observer following its path. It sped towards the arid world of Korhal, four mighty Gargantuan engines powering its flight. Slowly it entered the asteroid field, vaporizing any chunk of errant rock getting in its way. Slowly it entered into the ambush.

Arcturus Mengsk, emperor of what was left of the Terran Dominion, looked through a porthole in the cabin aboard the_ Legacy_. Out of the fifty battlecruisers and other large capital warships he had managed to scrap together for the fight against the Zerg broods, only the one he was standing in survived. One of the last of the ships to survive the Zerg onslaught, masterminded by Kerrigan, Queen of Blades.

Mengsk pondered, his thoughts running wildly together. Had it only been a few hours since the uneasy alliance between the United Earth Directorate remnants, the Protoss, and the Terran Dominion attacked a Zerg brood on a space platform orbiting Char? Had it only been a few hours since Mengsk once again tasted the bitter medicine of defeat? Had only been a few hours since he had seen a Zerg counterattack slaughter the UED? Kerrigan was especially cruel to the UED troops, sparing only the slowest shuttles and ships for the poor UED souls. Slowly, as the Earthlings lumbered towards their homeplanet, they were vanquished by Zerg flyers. The Zerg reduced DuGalle and his fleet, once a mighty armada, to floating chunks of debris in space.

But Mengsk, as he pondered around in his cabin, did not care for the poor souls who died on their ships. The only thing he cared about was getting his throne back, consolidating his power, expanding, defending against the Zerg and any other enemy.

His moral code was only 'eat or be eaten.' He only thought of the defeated UED as another threat he didn't have to worry about when he got home. He had an image to cultivate, an empire to rule, a galaxy to conquer. It was never about the Zerg, Protoss, or Terran. It was about him.

An adjutant's image, her head shaved, dark pupils looking at the graying man, flickered on his monitor on his desk. "Sir," she said, in a soft, computerized feminine tone that made Mengsk forget he was talking to a real human, "an unidentified battlecruiser just appeared on our sensors. Commander Jameson is requesting your presence on the bridge."

"Tell him I'll be there in a moment," Mengsk replied, sighing heavily as he turned away from the porthole. The adjutant's image disappeared from the screen.

He walked out of his cabin, traveling across the first floor of the cruiser, to the bridge. His salt and pepper hair was neatly combed, his beard trimmed. His looks and voice deceived many, for he was only in his forties, but his grandfatherly looks and voice made him seem much older. This man was the Emperor who struggled to lead the whatever Terrans were left in the Sector to domination against whatever aliens.

His cloak flapped around as he quickened his pace, taking long strides. The red emblem of the Dominion and the Sons of Korhal was on the back of his cloak, the symbol of pride and unity for the men and women aboard._ For now,_ he thought.

He entered the bridge, doors hissing open as two robotically armored marines held their rifles high to salute him.

"G'evening, gentlemen," Mengsk said.

"Sir." The marines stood up taller, trying to make an impression.

"Emperor." Jameson, in his standard Dominion Commander's uniform, red with black trimmings, saluted to Mengsk. The Emperor nodded in acknowledgement, knowing Jameson was trying to mock him with his title. Jameson knew Mengsk was only Emperor of his own little cruiser, with only a few thousand loyal to him. _But yet, enough to take back a planet._

"Commander. What situation do we have here?" He looked through the glass plating, essentially a huge window on the blunt end of the cruiser. Staring back was the head of another of the monolithic warships. Asteroids floated between them.

"What does the transponder list it as?" Mengsk asked, not taking his eyes off the ship. He knew who was aboard. He clasped his hands to his back.

"Standard type. _Behemoth_-class, like the _Legacy_. A few modifications, here and there. Built in Umoja for the Feds, I believe, stolen by the Sons, and presented to a certain Captain. And then stolen by the Captain from the Dominion." Jameson's words were lanced with uncontrollable anger. "Teal markings, with a symbol of a vulture bird and the emblem of the Colony of Mar Sara on the side. You know the name?" Jameson knew his stuff.

"Ah yes, the _Hyperion_, no doubt. Stolen from the Confederacy, and stolen from me. Commander Raynor is aboard, I assume?"

Almost as if on cue, the communications officer looked up from her monitor with frustration on her face. "Sir, the _Hyperion_ is jamming us. We can't get any read on it or communications. I think it's hailing."

A man's head appeared on the massive monitor on the side of the bridge. Mengsk looked at the man, his uni-brow expression angry, shaved head shining, and mustache untrimmed and all over. _Jim Raynor..._

"Hello Jim." Mengsk waved a friendly hand to the image. His former right hand man. In his mind, three words repeated. _Dirty traitor, bastard..._

"Don't give me that bullshit, Mengsk,"

"And what do you want me to give you?"

"What happened?"

"Concerning what?"

"The battle, damnit!" Raynor's voice sounded pissed. _He has bloodshot eyes,_ Mengsk noted._ He's worried about something._

"Kerrigan proved herself. She lived up to her title, 'Queen Bitch of the Universe,' I think. She kicked our asses, including your Protoss friends, and then wiped out what was left of the UED."

"No, goddamn you Mengsk, _where the hell is Kerrigan?_" Raynor was infuriated.

"Kerrigan? I suppose she's rallying her broods to make a visit to Earth. Or on Korhal. Or maybe a little see-sighting tour to you and your Protoss friends on Shakuras, no about?" Mengsk feigned a smile, enjoying his little game with Raynor. He waved a hand to his weapons officer. The officer nodded, powering up the ship's Yamato Cannon. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to get to Korhal and prepare my defenses for the next onslaught. Hopefully-"

"You're not going anywhere, man, until we talk a few things over. I learned about a new threat that's going to kill all of us, including the Zerg. I'm coming over." Raynor's image flickered off.

"Sir, they've locked us in a stasis field!" A navigations officer to the right of Mengsk pointed outside of the cruiser's thick glass. A Protoss Arbiter hovered behind an asteroid, and as it moved, Mengsk looked at a whole flotilla of uncloaking fighters facing his lone cruiser: two squadrons of wraith superiority fighters and a wing of Protoss Scouts. Laser batteries and the Yamoto Gun froze in locked position, unable to power up because of the stasis field. "Damn! All men to their battlestations! Take up positions on the egress points on the ship!" As Mengsk yelled, a two blasts from the _Hyperion_ neatly disabled the ATA and ATS batteries on the "wings" on the _Legacy._

"Hell, what does that son of a bitch want from me now?" Mengsk said. Jameson smiled, looking calm in the midst of chaos, as marines raced frantically towards each of the twenty openings on the cruiser.

**Aboard the _Hyperion_**

"Can I get you anything sir? Anything you'd like me to do? Sir, I think this mission is too dangerous, you should leave it up to your-"

Raynor turned around. "For the last time, Arnold, stop telling me what to do!" The nineteen year-old kid stared defiantly back at the commander. He was a skinny thing, with pimples and a wisp of a beard. And he would follow Raynor through hell and back. He worshipped the former Marshal like a kid worshipping a superhero. _He probably thinks I am one,_ Raynor thought. "Now, I gotta go now, alright? Take care of the ship for me," Raynor said, strolling towards a dropship. He sighed. Arnold, like most of his Raiders, had lost family and friends to Zerg, and had nothing else except a group of backcountry hicks and farmers to go to. _I just wished they weren't as young. _

Marines filed inside each transport, as the technicians and air control operators gave a signal that all four of the transports were ready, in the main air hanger, located in the bottom back deck of the battlecruiser.

A square egress, large enough to let two dropships through, was located in the center of the deck. Above Raynor's head were C/F-17H wraith fighter craft, hanging by their wings on large steel rods. Pilots of the crafts were continuously coming up and down from and to their ships as they rested and prepped for their next sortie. Starfighter technicians and men in bulky SCV suits strode up and down the hanger bay, repairing and arming wraiths. Battlecruisers were known for their frantic bustling.

Raynor strode to his designated dropship, as a lumbering, towering form of a Dark Templar came up besides him, cloak flapping, and _cholas_ veil on his face. _Do you think this will work, Commander?_ Zami said, telepathically.

"Course it'll work man, if Mengsk doesn't want to be friendly with us, we'll have to drag him along and pound him for good measure. Anyway, we're not going over his piece of junk to kill, just to see if he has any info about his past. About the massacre on Umoja." Raynor gulped down a hard lump in his throat.

It had only been a few weeks since the incident occurred, on a remote location in Umoja, where the Umojan Protectorate kept their secret nuclear missile base. Raynor gulped down another urge to puke as he entered the ship, as the two pilots nodded to him. He had seen death before, but not the gore that was spread in the missile base. The blood...and the stench. Limbs and organs strewn everywhere. The missiles all taken. Blood deep enough to soak his boots in. And the things that did it were not Zerg, they were other _humans._ Whoever had done it were madmen.

The only clue to who ordered and committed and massacre was left in blood on a wall of the base. REGARDS FROM THE OTHER SON OF KORHAL, it had read. Which left Raynor wondering who that person was. A terrorist? An avenger? An madman? Raynor had started looking for clues, but he knew the only person he could get info from was the leader of the Sons of Korhal.

Which was why Raynor, his Raiders, and the Protoss were going to interrogate Mengsk. _We don't need another threat out there. We already have too many, _Raynor thought, viewing the space surrounding him as the dropship took off. Out there were the Zerg and Sarah. Out there was Samir Duran. And out there was a terrorist playing god with the universe.

**Aboard the _Legacy of Korhal_**

On the neck, the long, thin section of a standard battlecruiser, thirty men, under command of a young Dominion officer, waited for their uninvited guests to arrive. A metal door, like the other nineteen on the _Legacy_ was being guarded by the men, their Gauss weaponry trained, ready to fire.

The officer was guessing the four dropships would land on some of the twenty egress openings on the ship, since the main airhanger inside the cruiser was too well protected. The only way to land though, on a static cruiser, floating in space, with all of its egress doors sealed shut was to get a dropship close enough to the ship, was to open its side door, and let someone hack into the computer mainframe to override any command sealing the door.

Outside, in the vacuum of space, a Ghost Agent waited patiently as the dropship inserted a cylindrical passageway to the egress door on the battlecruiser. Once a vacuum, complete with an atmosphere between the dropship and cruiser was completed through the passageway, the Ghost walked to the computer outside the egress. A Dark Templar followed, drawing its power psionic power to completely cloak itself. Raynor came next.

"Got it, Jamie?"

"Just a few more minutes, sir," he said, adding his own little hacking gadget to the computer.

"Alright." He turned to Zami, the Shadow Hunter. "Remember man, don't hurt the marines waiting in there if you can help it. Our primary mission is just to escort Mengsk, so try to not massacre people, ok?"

The Dark Templar stared back with an innocence too real despite his six hundred year old mind. _I will try, James._

"Ready?"

"Ready sir." The Ghost jogged back to the dropship as marines in blue armor filed out.

Raynor pressed a button on the computer. "Open sesame."

A Dominion marine, from the inside of the ship, waiting, squinted in the darkness as he hoisted his rifle. The door was open, alright, but there was no one there. No marines or other troops stormed into the _Legacy._

"It's a Ghost!" The Dominion officer shouted, standing in the middle of the corridor. "Open fire!"

The marines let loose from their guns. Torrents of rifle fire scorched the ship and the void outside. Scorch marks on the NeoSteel armor of the door painted the savagery thirty rifles could do. No blood, however, streamed, and no cloaked Ghost appeared out of nowhere, slumping on the hard metal floor.

_What the hell?_ The Dominion officer didn't know what to do. He took a step backwards, only to bump into a person...or thing. Then he felt a hand grasp his neck. Another hand grabbed his mouth. A voice appeared, seemingly normal, except it was inside his head. "Tell your troops to drop your guns. Or my blade will cut your throat and the odd contraption sprouting on your face. A 'mouth' I believe it is called. Tell them!"

The officer signaled his men with his hand. One marine looked at him oddly. "Sir what's...oh." The marine dropped his rifle.

No one moved his gun towards the Protoss warrior, fearing it could cut each man in thousands of pieces in a second. Rumors spread like wildfire about the abilities of a Protoss Templar. Rifles clattered on the floor, as marines raised their hands high above their heads.

From the egress, marines led by Raynor streamed into the ship, as if appearing from nowhere. "Good job, Zami. Bet you boys weren't expecting Zami to climb on your ceiling, huh?" He pointed towards the ceiling of the ship.

"Come on, man. My boys will take care of the Dominion boys here." Raynor and the Dark Templar left to the bridge of the ship, while the rest of the Raiders rounded the Dominion men into another room.

"Cloak again, man, and sneak up on anyone holding a gun. Disarm them. I'll get Mengsk. I know him, he'll understand, and come along," Raynor said. He cocked his gun. "But stay frosty. Some of Mengsk's men might stir up trouble." Zami nodded in acknowledgment.

Raynor pressed a button to open the door to the bridge. Guns immediately were pressed against him, and he heard the rustle of a cloak from his left.

"Well. Looks like Jim Raynor overextended his capabilities. He got through my marines alright, but he was dumb enough to walk in here like he owned the ship." Mengsk stood there, pistol in hand, as a Dominion commander stood in the back. Hatred filled his eyes. _Jameson,_ Raynor thought. _Of course, he hated me when I was with the Sons._

"Hey man, back off. I _did _own this ship once. I was commanding it before the _Hyperion._"

Mengsk frowned. "All the better reason for me to shoot you." Then he stiffened, as if held up by something. The gun was released from his grasp, and he was lifted bodily from the ship's deck. "Another one of your Protoss friends, I presume?" Mengsk said, struggling to breathe. "Alright everyone, drop your guns." A clatter of weaponry followed. "Raynor, tell this beast to get off me."

Mengsk's feet landed on the floor. Then Raynor grabbed him. "He's not a beast, you dumb bastard," he said, whispering. "You call Zami that again, and I'll rip out your throat."

"What the hell do you want, Raynor?"

Raynor released his grasp. "I need to question you. About the SoK. Before I joined the Sons of Korhal, there are some stuff I need to know about. For the sake of _all_ of our goddamn heads."

"Like what?"

"When you formed the Sons, two other men helped you: Cal Luke, an influential Korhalian senator, and Dash Strom, a former Confederate Prospector like yourself. Luke was executed by Fed High Command. Strom disappeared." Raynor shot him another look.

"Yeah, so?"

"You killed him, Mengsk. Your love for power made you kill him. Sharing power with someone was to you as hideous as what the Confederates did to your planet. And what better executioner than Sarah Kerrigan? You let her kill him, but didn't tell her why. And then you ordered her on that suicide mission in New Gettysburg Spaceport, to eliminate the Protoss, and her, so word of your assassination wouldn't leak out. Like all good people, she followed your orders. And after she got overrunned and turned into the 'Queen Bitch' you forgot about her."

Raynor was madly pacing around the deck, as if in a trance.

"You damn bastard, you forget about everyone. You forgot about me, and know I'm here, kicking your ass. You forgot about Duke, and he died. You forget about Kerrigan, and she's our worst enemy. And," he continued, looking straight at Mengsk, "you forgot about Dash Strom's son, Kliven."

"Strom? What the hell is his son doing?"

"Stealing superweapons."

Mengsk's eyes narrowed. "Superweapons?" he hissed. "Like what?"

"Remember the Ion Cannon I destroyed, just after I broke off with you and you crowned yourself Emperor? The weapon that can destroy whole fleets, and was the vanguard in defending Tarsonis against a SoK planetary assault? The Feds made _two_ of them. One was broken into mobile parts and hidden across the Sector, shortly before Tarsonis was destroyed by the Zerg. The other one was destroyed by my boys. Kliven has got all of the pieces, and he's just acquired the key to the weapon a few days ago in a mission against the Kel-Moria Combine. And that's not all."

Mengsk was still focusing on the word _Ion Cannon._ Thoughts raced wildly through his head. _I'll need another Guards Battalion to destroy it then...no worries._

"He's also got nukes too, so you can eliminate your plans about trying to send your Elite Guards to destroy the thing. They'll get nuked before they can blink."

"What makes you think I'm going to send my men?"

"I know you too well."

"What _do_ you want me to do?" Mengsk said. "I have an empire and homeworld to defend."

"I need you to come with me to talk. To answer questions and see a video of what Kliven did. He's got other superweapons too. But the biggest, by far, are almost in his grasp. And if he gets them, he'll eliminate you. Me. The Zerg. Earth. Korhal. For good, too. It'll be an apocalypse. Kliven's mad; he's a terrorist, and he's not going to be afraid to use those weapons."

"And what else, Raynor?"

"I want to form a intelligence community out of the Protectorate, Dominion and Protoss. All your best terrorism agents and counter-intelligence people in one, varsity agency. That way, any threat like the one I'm telling you about can be stopped."

"What's it called?"

"Chimaera."

Mengsk mused at the name. _I'll worry about it later..._

"And you promise me a safe passage to Korhal after we're done?"

"Of course."

"Let's go."

**Bonn, Germany **

**United Earth Directorate Capital Building, Office of the Presidium**

Around the Directorate's Presidium Building, where President of the Earth and her Colonies, Alan Johnson, worked, ate, and slept, a massive ring of armored personnel carriers, tanks, and marines were waiting, blocking off entrance to any curious bystander. In French, a language barred from use since the early 21st century, the event was called a _coup d'etat._ An overthrow of the state. General Peter Dmitri Stukov strode into the Presidium Building, where four marines, visors down, gave him a salute, straight rods in robotic armor. Escorting him were four members of the UED Intelligence, four Ghost Special Espionage Agents.

A team of crack army troops had already stormed the building take Johnson hostage inside his office. Slowly, the general looked at the rooms inside the Capital Building. _Nice rooms to work in._ Stukov stepped around the body of an aide, not even looking at it. _For the will of Earth, it shall be so._

He walked inside Johnson's office looking around. Another aide laid dead in a chair, and the President of the most influential and power-wielding empire in human history looked back, blood-shot eyes and crumpled hair not hiding his surprise and bewilderment of what was happening: The UED Military was setting up a new government.

"What is the meaning of this, Stukov?" Johnson didn't want to believe what was happening. Stukov's Ghosts surrounded him.

"A change in politics, President Johnson. Or, should I say, _ex-_President Johnson?"

"What are you planning?"

Stukov paced around the room, recalling his speech. "Ever since my older brother Alexei was sent along with seventy-five percent of our military strength, I wondered how wise this would be. You did not approve of the use of nuclear weapons to clear the Sector of Zerg. My brother stupidly also did not approve. Why not? Your only reason is that it will cause millions of innocent casualties to the people of the Koprulu Sector."

"And that is why I _did not_ approve of sending nukes out there. Peter, the Zerg inhabit planets that are teeming with colonists. With life. And you ask me to approve of something to turn those places in ashen worlds like Char?"

Stukov ignored him. "Since you did not approve, our UED Expeditionary forces were slaughtered. We lost millions, and the Zerg are on their way over here. Your plot to use the Overmind as a tool has failed. My brother is dead. And still, you ask our people to employ conventional warfare against these demons! Why? Why this madness? Why not use nukes to clear the Zerg?"

"The Zerg are a cancer...they must be cut from the body! If you had a cancer, Stukov, would you destroy yourself in order to get rid of the cancer? No. Because everything would be lost if you did. I cannot order the deployment of nuclear weapons unless the Zerg are on some barren world. And then I will still hesitate, for nukes will contaminate the world for years- and create new mutations of the Zerg. Now, may I ask _what the hell are you doing here?_"

"We are having an overthrow of the government, Alan. You are not the president of Earth anymore. I am." Stukov smiled. "The fleet is being prepped for an offensive against the Zerg. We will lure them and destroy them with nukes- the weapons you shall not approve of but I, as the President, will."

"Are you mad? The nukes will not effectively destroy the Zerg. They can burrow deeply to protect themselves! Scientists have already found that nuclear waste can create mutations of the Zerg! Who or what are you doing this for? Is this your idea of revenge for your brother, Peter?"

"Not for my brother, Alan." Stukov calmly lifted up his pistol.

"For the UED. For Earth. For Humanity."

The gun coughed. Johnson's body slumped into his chair.

"Signal the fleet to began Operation Extermination. Tell the media I am ready for my Presidential Speech."

One of the Ghosts nodded and strode off. The UED was under new leadership.


	2. Chapter 2: Mission Impossible

Chapter 2: Mission Impossible

**High orbit above abandoned world of Chau Sara**

The _Valkyrie_-class missile frigate _Bloodwrath_ descended slowly into the ashen world of Chau Sara. Five Gryphon thrusters on the ship's back quieted as the three-man crew brought the two boosters on-line, slowing the rapid, dangerous descent towards the barren world.

Inside, two UED Infiltraitor agents sat, their faces bogged down with deforming contraptions of humanity's technology, looking at the various screens and controls with recognition.

"No bogies in sight," the main pilot said. Colonel Marco Fernandez, one of the Ghosts, smiled sadly, shouldering his standard C-10 canister rifle. His sad smile was twisted into a defiant smirk by his headgear, with one eye hidden under a device.

The UED Expeditionary Fleet under Admiral Gerald DuGalle was not completely destroyed, unlike what most of the factionous governments of the Koprulu Sector thought. Before and during the UED invasion, the Earth Military Intelligence Center, (EMIC), had inserted agents across the worlds, to mingle and learn more about the capabilities and colonists of the Sector. They also gathered intelligence on the Protoss and Zerg.

The agents, known as "Infiltraitors," or just 'traitors because of their ability to carry out successful sabotage missions, were trained to work as normal, ordinary people, as well as dynamic politicians and leaders within the Sector. They were servants, scientists, mercenaries, soldiers, senators of the Confederacy, and so on. Many were executed when the UED invaded, by moles placed by the governments of Koprulu, but many escaped. Together with the UED Occupying Forces spread along the system, they survived, grouping together and waiting for Earth to come back, and finish the job. The UED Remnant's job now was intelligence gathering and sabotage; which was why Fernandez and the other Ghost were sent to Chau Sara.

Lieutenant Min Verdi sat next to Fernandez, her black hair contrasting sharply with her Caucasian features. She 'powered up,' a Ghost term for embracing their inner psionic power to get a boost of energy. She felt a rush of energy surge into her muscles, like a stim, though not physically damaging as one.

"Everyone with a restraint on?" Zhukov asked over the intercom.

"That's a roge, Captain. How long until drop?"

"About fifteen minutes, Colonel. Enjoy the ride while you can."

Zhukov would drop them on the Zerg infested world, lifeless of humans. The Protoss did a good job of incinerating everything, for cities were in smoldering ruins and life was almost terminated. A few managed to scrap a small living there, but most humans died. _Or so it was thought,_ Fernandez wondered.

Intel from the remains of EMIC in the world of Brontes had briefed the two Ghosts of a strange occurrence on Chau: only a few days ago, a Wraith patrol found evidence and ships heading towards Chau that someone was living there. Though rumors were rampant that the Confederate Remnant infested worlds previously thought to be unlivable courtesy of Protoss and Zerg, Chau Sara was incinerated so nothing except Zerg and critters could live. Human activity on a dead world was _very _interesting to the UED.

"And," General George Burlington said, as he pointed to a map of Chau, "what better place to hide than on a Zerg-infested world that no one lives on? If people are going there, they are certainly hiding something or someone. I want you two to find out what."

Verdi sighed, as she intricately wrapped her long hair into a topknot so it wouldn't get in the way. _I've got a bad feeling about this..._

"C-10?"

"Check."

"Ammo?"

"Check."

"Sensors and mini-cam?"

"Check."

"Comms. device?"

"Check, Lieutenant. Relax Min, it's just a recon mission. We'll be out of there in no time, and you're scheduled to head back to Earth in a few weeks, when the next fleet arrives." They had recent a report by UED Remnant High Command that a smaller fleet would be coming from Earth via jump gate to secretly reinforce the UED forces.

She smiled. "That's what's worrying me. I'm not sure if I want to go back."

Fernandez smiled back. _Young and eager to be the best in her job_, he thought, surveying her lovely face._ Not bad looking either. _

"Son of a bitch!"

Fernandez immediately realized he had kept his thoughts unshielded, so that the other psychic Ghost could read his thoughts. "What? I didn't..."

But Zhukov had uttered the words. Verdi looked through the cockpit, to see two red dots on the HUD. Missiles.

"Two missiles from Chau locking on us when we entered atmosphere. Whoever's here _really_ doesn't want to be visited." The pilot managed a weak smile, and then her eyes widened. "Brace for impact!"

The first missile struck the tail of the frigate, blasting it away from the mainframe. The second scored a direct hit, right into the boosters underneath the ship. The _Bloodwrath_ tumbled into the demonic, arid world.

**New Providence, Umojan Protectorate Capital**

**Umojan Military Intelligence Ghost Training Center**

Lieutenant Jakk Jayce hesitated as he looked at the bomb, inside the dark room. His psionic intuition was telling him not to try to defuse it. The timer, marked by a red LED light displayed another fifty seconds until the bomb exploded. _I have to, _Jayce thought, arguing with himself. _It'll blow me up if I don't._

_Not if you run_, his intuition shot back.

The Ghost commando ignored his psionic sense. _Which wire. Red, blue, or yellow? _His wire cutter moved towards the red. 30 seconds to detonation. _White_, his intuition said.

_Are you ready, Jayce? They are coming soon._ A Protoss Templar, hovering above him, looked mildly interested at the device, but then scanned the doors.

"Hold on a sec, Aragas."

_We do not have a 'sec.'_

Jayce decided the yellow was the best to cut. _I never liked the color yellow anyways...oh shit._

Immediately the timer showed zero seconds. Detonation. Jayce closed his eyes.

Lights turned on. A woman, graying, but with a hawk like expression and sharp eyes showing none of her fifty-eight years of age, stepped into the room with a sigh, slamming the door behind her.

_Another day training to be a Ghost; or, at least, the vision of what she wants every Ghost to be: her._ Jayce thought, mentally letting out a long sigh.

"That's the fifth time, J.J."

"Yes ma'am."

"You-" she pointed a long index finger at his chest armor. "-are a part of an elite, counter-terrorist, counterinsurgency team dedicated in removing terrorists with a head shot. But why the hell can't you even defuse a bomb?"

"Yes ma'am."

"Don't 'yes ma'am' me Jakk. If you die out there, it's not my goddamn-"

"Alise."

"Yes, Commander McAllen?"

"Leave the boy alone."

A man, only a few years older than Jayce but aging at a pace faster than a Wraith could fly walked into the room, carrying a manila folder. Oddly, his graying hair matched in well with his sharp, emaciated features, strands of graying hair muffling his eyes under those thick spectacles. Was this really the man who had successfully initiated the drive to eradicate the Overmind and its Cerebrates from Aiur?

"How's it going, Jakk?"

"Fine, commander. Doing just fine," Jayce said, frowning. _I've been in this damn Ghost program five years and all that old granny can do is curse me to pieces. _

"You ready for a mission as part of the new team?"

Jayce nodded, crossing his arms.

"This-" he thrusted the folder to Jayce, "-is your first mission for CHIMAERA."

"Yessir."

"Ethan, help me knock some other words into this boy. The only things he can say are 'yes ma'am' and 'yessir.'"

"I can't make him do anything. He's a Ghost. He can do whatever the hell he feels like now." McAllen smiled slowly, revealing more wrinkles in his face than Jayce cared to see. _God, I hope my psionic powers don't make me age that fast._

"What's the plan?" Alise Cameron asked. Jayce looked back at her. A legend of the Umojan Intelligence Services.

She was the first female Umojan Ghost to graduate from the rigorous training program all military agents went through; but she had further increased her celebrity-like status in the military when she infiltrated a Confederacy base once thought to be impenetrable and learned about the Zerg. It was Cameron who had advocated for a defense build-up against a Zerg invasion. That defense spending also went into good use when the UED invaded Umoja and was pushed back with heavy losses, making the Protectorate's planet one of the few remaining worlds outside of Earth, Protoss, or Zerg control. Now retired, she thought she could make her nephew as legendary as her.

_Only thing she's forgot about me is that I'm a guy, not a girl. _Jayce mentally sighed, and opened the manila folder.

"You're kidding," he said as he finished reading. McAllen smiled.

"I'm too old to kid, Jakk."

"Get into Chau Sara? You're crazy. Chau Sara has been home to Zerg since the beginning, when they invaded. Infiltrating it will be suicidal!"

McAllen frowned, looking at Cameron. "Tell him."

She sighed, and crossed her arms. "You know why Chimaera was formed, Jakk? You know why you were suddenly picked out of the dozens of Ghosts worked for Intel and chosen to lead this group?"

"Of course not. Every time I try to ask, all you do is tell me to shut my fat mouth." His aunt ignored him.

"A few months ago, we noticed a strange, new black market for various nuclear equipment and psionic emitters springing up all over Koprulu. Things like plutonium, uranium, and nuclear fission reactors previously used by the Feds were being stripped out of their facilities and sold. And there was only one buyer." She looked at her nephew

"You know who I'm talking about."

Jayce nodded. "Kliven Strom."

"Right. Strom has been buying everything that he needs to make large, tactical nukes that the Feds launched on Korhal. And Intelligence, once they've found out, wondered: Why? What good would having nukes be if Zerg only mutated to nasty new creations when you nuked them? Why try to find the pieces of the second Ion Cannon if the only good it's going to do is wipe out a starfleet that you might need against a Zerg incursion?" Cameron paused, looking at her nephew with a deadpan expression.

"We didn't find out until Strom and his men broke into our own nuclear storehouse and stole everything we had."

"You do now?"

"Yes. He wants, first of all, every superweapon ever made in the entire galaxy. He's collecting them like holocards: nukes from our store, Kel-Moria Combine, and Remnants of the Feds, as well as Dominion stores. The Ion Cannon parts from various Zerg infested planets, and," Cameron sighed, "a biological weapon the Feds developed in the early stages of the Zerg invasion."

Jayce, for the first time, hardened, and twitched. _What the hell could a disease do?_

Cameron read her nephew's mind.

"Back when the Zerg first started encroaching the outskirts of Confed space, the Feds found out about these...Zerg, and started to experiment with the ones that were captured. Most experiments were done by the military intelligence arm of the Confeds, the Nova Squadron. Now, this way before the Zerg actively scouted Koprulu. This was only half a decade after the Guild Wars, when the Feds were reaching the pinnacle of their power. So this virus isn't old. In fact, it's pretty old; Mengsk's former partner, Cal Luke, was assassinated using this stuff."

She paused, reflecting over her data.

"'Anyways, one of Nova's experiments lead to an interesting discovery: Zerg have a nasty reaction to a biological weapon the Feds were developing called Pandora. The virus-based weapon was first designed to kill political targets unsuspectingly, but Hauler, the former commander of Nova Squadron, found out that Pandora kills Zerg too: rapidly spreading quickly through broods of Zerg, attacking their immune system, and metabolizing their bodies until they were dead. Then the virus looks for a new host, especially if it's Zerg." She paused again, handing her nephew pictures.

"These are fairly new pictures of what Zerg look like after they've been attacked by the virus."

Jayce held back the urge to vomit. He felt sorry for the Hydralisk...almost. Though of bad quality, the pictures clearly outlined the shape of Hydra: long, slithery tale, twisted human-like skull, two distinctive scythes. But that was it: it was _only _an outline, the bare essentials of something that was once alive. The rest was eaten away, consumed until all that was left was a skeletal outline of a creature.

"Jesus." Jayce turned to his aunt. "Why the hell aren't we letting this terrorist do this?"

Cameron smiled grimly. "Though the Feds found the Zerg and experimented with this virus on them long before other intel agencies knew what was going on, they were forced to develop another version of Pandora. After the Sons of Korhal gained too much influence over the Sector, after the Protoss incinerated Chau and Mar Sara, Pandora was modified to be a weapons of mass destructions against all alien invaders, Zerg and Protoss alike, as well as fellow _human beings._"

At the word "Protoss," Aragas shifted slightly in his robe.

_Are you sure of this, commander?_

Cameron, hiding her surprise at the silent Protoss still in the room, nodded. "The honored Zeratul has told of me that though looking vastly dissimilar, the Zerg and Protoss were made by one alien species, who implanted to genetic fundamentals in both species. This Pandora evidently does something to metabolize both Protoss, Zerg, and Terran since they have similar structures. We are all highly-developed creatures, and this virus finds some way to attacks all of us."

Aragas nodded. _So it is._

Cameron turned back to Jayce. "So the Feds, knowing it was do-or-die for their government, made a massive store of Pandora at a secret facility at Dylar XI, far from any terrorist or Zerg activities. They were about to activate it when their plans were terminated by an uprising on that planet. Are you getting this?"

Jayce nodded, not believing what he was hearing. _A biological weapon used to wipe out everything..._

"Wait, _why_ would Strom want to wipe out Zerg, Protoss, _and _Terran? And if he has this, why hasn't he activated it yet?"

Cameron gave a small smile. "Good questions. Kliven-" she sighed once before continuing "-basically wants to start his own master race by eliminating everyone without psionic potential from the universe and starting life again with 'purebred' human race of highly developed psionic intellect. There's only about a hundred other of these madmen that agree with him."

"Eliminate everyone." Jayce repeated, blankly.

"Yes."

"And you want me to stop it."

"Not at the moment. Jakk, I haven't answered your other question yet."

"Why hasn't he activated it?"

"Because he needs to metabolize the virus itself. It's the only way to make it work and kill everything. And the only way he can do that is through a hybrid of Zerg/Terran, Terran/Protoss, or Protoss/Zerg...thing. Early on, Nova Squadron had the resources to successfully capture and use an Infested Terran without making it blow up. We believe they left quite a bit of this 'hybrid metabolizer' around, but Hauler was smart enough to realize its potential and destroyed it. There's still plenty of unactivated Pandora virus around; Strom's been collecting it but he only needs a metabolizer. Now, only infested Terrans have been made...yet... and the only infested Terrans that don't automatically blow themselves up are Sarah Kerrigan and Samir Duran. Duran vanished, so only Kerrigan is left."

Jayce's mind whirled. "Are you saying that he's going to get Kerrigan's blood or something?"

McAllen, from the back of the room, nodded. "Yep."

"So he's got to kidnap the thing that's keep at least half of the Protoss and Human races in terror, while the other half is dead or maimed?"

McAllen nodded again, with an irony that this wasn't any concern...to anyone that didn't live in the universe. "Believe me, commander, he probably can. With a few other Ghosts. These were fresh students, eager and well trained, out of Tarsonian Military Academy. They're fascist about creating a 'pure' world, free of Zerg and Protoss, free of human trash. No one without psionic potential should even been living, because they're not developing the evolutionary process of humanity." Cameron nodded slowly. "They've got a shot at capturing Kerrigan.

"And you want me..." Jayce closed his eyes before saying, "...to protect Kerrigan?"

McAllen and Cameron both nodded and shook their heads. "Not at first. We don't know how much time we have before Strom will do it. He's collecting other superweapons first. No, we're sending you to Chau Sara for a different reason: his base is located there. You will infiltrate it and find any information you can concerning anything about this group he's gathering, and why the hell he wants to play God for."

_Am I involved in any of this activity, Commander Cameron?_

Jayce whirled around, looking at the slim but huge form of the Protoss. Even with his size, it was easy to lose the Templar if he stood so still and breathed so quietly. Not that Protoss had noses, Jayce reminded himself.

His aunt nodded. "We hope you will be going with J.J, Ambassador Aragas. If you wish."

Aragas nodded. _I wish it so._

Cameron nodded. "Jayce, we're also giving you a nice vehicle we put together specially for this mission."

"Let's boogy then."

For the boss of the Chimaera Counterinsurgency Team, the fun was beginning.


	3. Chapter 3: Search and Rescue

Chapter 3: Search and Rescue

Mengsk looked edgy and sick in the interrogation room of the _Hyperion_. Of course, he had a reason to be, surrounded by hostile officers that he had tried to kill when he had been the Emperor of the Dominion. Raynor was one of them, as he sat, tipping his chair on the two back legs, looking at Mengsk while the former Korhalian looked at the small holovision at the center of the table.

"My God," he said, after the holovid was done.

"Just another monster you've created, Mengsk. You've screwed up so many times, and this is just another of the failures. 'Cept that, if we can't fix this failure, we're all dead."

"What the hell do you want me to do! I built an organization, an empire, a nationality out of a piece of shit in this sector, Raynor. All to see it razed by Zerg. Of course people are going to get hurt when this happens. You can't blame it all on me!"

"I'm not blaming it all on you, Mengsk. Damnit, I just want you to comprehend what you've made when you're power hungry. You've killed a lot of good people with your lust for power, and you've made monsters out of another unhappy bunch." Raynor threw down a folder on the table. Mengsk picked it up, looking inside. A picture of a youth.

There he was. The son of his best friend, Dash Strom. He had his good features from his father, sun-burnt, like many of Korhal's inhabitants, with a hawk like-nose and hazel eyes. His slimness didn't reveal the muscles that was hidden under his Ghost Hostile Environment Suit.

"How did he become a Ghost?"

"He was one of the last to graduate from Confederate Intelligence Operative Academy on Tarsonis, right before you killed his father and the Zerg attacked. When they did, he got away along with his fellow Cadets and recruits. He was the most senior officer, and when he heard that the Zerg had been lured to Tarsonis by the Psi Emitter you dropped, and that you had killed his father, he went berserk." Raynor sighed, rubbing his temples and roughly smoothing out his hair that wasn't there. Mengsk was silent, staring at the picture.

"He persuaded most of the Ghost recruits to join his team, since most of them had lost families due to you. We believe he didn't have a actual goal or plan to avenge his father's death until he learned about the Pandora. Intel still doesn't know how word got out of Pandora's capabilities before we did, but we found out after him. But now he does have a goal. We've been tracking his movements ever since the bloodbath when all of Umojan's nukes were stolen."

Mengsk raised his eyebrows. "And what's his goal?"

Raynor stared back, unflinchingly, narrowing his eyes. "He's gonna blow Korhal to atom bits, and then release this virus to the whole fucking universe. Most of it, anyways. Making every world unlivable in this universe by razing it with a virus isn't hard, but he'll leave a few habitable places out there." Raynor made a garbled sound, as if he couldn't really believe he was telling this.

"Then he'll start the race of Man all over again, like Adam and Eve, with just a couple thousand psi-powered humans left in the universe."

"Apocalypse...and rebirth? Jesus." Mengsk shook his head. Raynor nodded.

"We've got a madmen who thinks he's God."

**Aboard the _UEDS Avenger_**

No ship could replace the titan _Aleksander_, but the United Earth Directorate Ship _Avenger_ came close. Two thousand meters of hull, three hundred meters in height and width at the extremes, the ship was a masterpiece of the shipbuilders and engineers at the St. Petersburg Naval Yards. It was dedicated to none other than the heroes of the UED, Admiral of the Fleet Gerard du Galle and Vice Admiral of the Fleet Alexei Stukov. For Earth, all that was needed was an avenger. Built immediately after the UED government had given approval to the launching of the UED Expeditionary Forces, the _Behemoth II-_class battlecruiser formed the pinnacle of an armada heading towards the jump gate. Above and beyond it, the ships _Paris, Berlin, London, Moscow, Madrid, _and _Rome_ steamed in the darkness of space, the seven _Behemoth-II_ class battlecruisers making up the main striking power of the fleet for Operation Extermination. On each of the seven ships, a staggering two hundred and fifty-six missiles, tipped with nuclear warheads were stored, enough to obliterate Earth and her sister colonies five times over. Each missile carried seven separate warheads that fired at intervals, enough to decimate five hundred thousand square miles each.

Above and below, ringing to the seven, _Behemoth-I _class battlecruisers, _Vienna, Bern, Warsaw, Prague, Bucharest,_ named for every European city they were built in, followed the main fleet. Among the capital ships were dozens of smaller craft.

Fleet Commander James Conrad was young at forty-five, by UED Fleet Commander standards. He was one of those geniuses that came few and far between, graduating first of his class at the Annapolis Naval Academy and proceeding through the ranks with ease. His first command was with none other than Vice Admiral Stukov, the dead brother of the new President, Peter Stukov.

_The dead Stukov was a good man,_ Conrad though, _although as loyal to the homeworld as the UED would like. Perhaps they sought to balance the "by the book" du Galle with the more liberal Stukov. Too bad he was shot for it. _

His orders were simple. Exterminate the Zerg, Terran and Protoss in the Koprulu Sector, and mop up all life. _All priorities are second. _Genocide and Xenocide, that was what it really meant. But Conrad did not care. He had a lost a brother to the Zerg, supported by the dastardly Dominion and the Protoss, as well as that bastard Raynor. He did not want to see Earth get obliterated by the Zerg, Protoss, or a bunch of backwater hicks that were descendants of criminals anyway. And the Zerg with their bitch leader Kerrigan? They would pay in their filthy blood.

He was not thinking about the thousands of UED Occupying Forces left in the Sector.

"Distance to the jump gate?"

"Another six thousand spacial kilometers, Commander, a good two days of journeying."

"Very good, proceed with duties, navigation officer."

The "jump gate" that Conrad referred to was another testament to the ingeniousness of UED scientists. Before the UED Expeditionary Fleet under du Galle had left, government scientists had successfully found a way to travel quicker to the Koprulu Sector, instead of cryogenic sleep. Bending space-time, ships could go through egress points that were set; ships could effectively jump through portions of space, like a Protoss warp gate.

But the portals for the "jumps" needed to be set by someone; and so throughout their long journey, the now destroyed Expeditionary Fleet, under du Gaulle, had set a number of these points up, each with a space station defending it. The last gate was actually on a moon orbiting the Koprulu world of Braxis, where the most heavily entrenched members of the Occupying Forces had been set up.

Conrad spun his heel away from the helm of the _Avenger_ and paced the twenty-five steps it took him to the door of the bridge.

_Only a few weeks before everything will be back to normal, and Janie can sleep soundly without having to worry about Zerg..._

Only a few weeks.

**High Orbit above Chau Sara**

**Wraith Squadron Echo**

"Echo leader, this is Echo-three. We have the transport."

"Alright, Echo Squadron, stay frosty and look out for anything on your HUDs. Your primary objective is to protect the 'rock' at any costs."

"Got it, Echo leader."

Three of the C/F-17H Wraiths swerved above the _Hyperion_ as it launched a dropship high above the desolate world of Chau Sara. Another five Echo squadron Wraiths whirled in circles above the drop point.

The "rock" was an outer coating of organic igneous and metamorphic compounds found on meteors that frequently burned themselves on the small atmosphere of Chau Sara at they pummeled to the world. Before the Protoss had decided to make the world a wasteland where human survivors were reduced to running around like rats, the Chau Saran atmosphere was dense and thick, able to destroy the countless asteroids and meteors that were attracted to the gravitational pull of Chau Sara from the nearby Kyros Belt. But now, daily asteroids plummeted to the ground, the absence of an atmosphere reducing friction.

McAllen and Cameron had to first solve the problem of getting into Chau Sara. There had been previous missions of trying to infiltrate the world, without any success. Every team sent down there was lost shortly after landing. Intelligence had wagered that Strom was setting up the remaining habitable places in the world with lookout towers and detecting equipment. Stumped, Cameron was left frustrated by the inability to spy on Strom. A senior Intel analyst had suggested the idea of disguising the team that would go in with organic material, so on a tracking screen the object would look like an asteroid. McAllen agreed.

The dropship stopped in space, as the Wraiths circled like sharks around it. Slowly, the hatch opened on the transport, dropping a oval shaped, chunky, irregular piece of rock, dark gray and black, along with dozens of other rocks of similar size to serve as decoys. Suddenly, two cylindrical cones jutted out of the back of the "rock" and blasted away, producing invisible fumes as the projectile flew from the transport and onto the barren world of Chau Sara.

Inside the organic hull, the hollowed asteroid, captured by a trajectory beam from the _Hyperion _a few weeks earlier, held two passengers: Jayce and Aragas, in a cramped, tight Vulture Bike. It was a modified, two-person MH-88 Vulture Scout Vehicle (VSV) featuring a gaggle of gadgets and equipment.

"ALPHA Rock, ALPHA Rock, this is _Hyperion._ We've released our payload of dummies."

"Roger that, _Hyperion_. Wish me a safe trip."

"As always, sir."

As other asteroids, dozens of them, were discharged from the main hanger bay of the battlecruiser, one of them had oddly cylindrical, gray tubes jutting out, slowly propelling it into the world. The detection station, on the remains of the continent Syra, detected only the standard barrage of asteroids heatedly barraging through the isolated world. It did not report back to the headquarters of Strom.

**Chau Sara**

**Aboard the crashed _Valkyrie_-class missile frigate, _Bloodwrath_**

Verdi didn't knew what was more disgusting: the fact that the mission had failed almost without warning or the stench of dead flesh being feasted on by the Chau Saran fauna. Fernandez was dead, being feasted on by large, angry rat-like creatures. Zhukov was almost certainly dead. Verdi's body felt like it had gone through an incinerator, then pounded on by a dozen trampling elephants. She could move, one leg stuck between the metal structure of the ship, two arms weak and useless.

_Who the hell shot us down at such a high altitude?_ Whatever or whoever it was, they sure didn't want to be found. Verdi looked out from her jail, watching the night blanket the planet. Above, one of the asteroids shot through the night sky, streaking as its outer shell broke as the friction took its toll.

**Moria, three days later**

**D-Team, thirty minutes outside restricted Kelanis Mining Guild Storage Depot**

Dog team had followed Strom from the beginning. Its members were hardy, able to survive the elements while carrying out their mission with precision as sharp as a knife. The Ghosts, all of them young males, were drained almost of their human spirit because of their past. They had no conscience, no spiritual self that made them human. They were only empty shells, sucked dry of emotion. _Killers._ That was their only name.

"Tak," D-team's leader, signaled to three semi-transparent Ghosts in the fading light of a Morian summer to move ahead. The perimeter of the Depot, which held enriched uranium, plutonium, and destrium products, was guarded by a long section of fence. Nothing else. No guards, no high-tech gadgets to detect cloaked spies or saboteurs. Just a three foot high fence. Obviously, Moria was still reeling after the UED and Zerg invaded.

Quietly, they slipped through the door of the Facility easily, the old, rusting security camera unwary of invisible predators. As the last Ghost slipped in, Tak followed, a heavy, C-11 Shredder gun in his grip. Inside, scientists in lab coats wandered in the lighted hallways, inspecting and checking the massive, cylindrical barrels of newly mined uranium, which were then processed in enriched deposits used for energy and weaponry. A perfect target to sabotage.

With swift speed, Dog Team struck. An agent punctured the paper thin walls that separated an innocent scientist from Ghost, impaling the man with a sharp blade; a crimson blossom bloomed on the fresh lab coat before the Ghost yanked the blade free, leaving the dead man sagging on the wall.

Tak himself silenced the muffled screams of the technicians with a kick, nodding to another partially invisible agent to set the bombs and timer, before he viciously yanked one of the technician's neck, feeling the satisfied silence and crunch of bones as the neck gave way.

Then, as silently as they crept in, they slithered out, as the clunky boots of marines found body after body of dead men. The blood left behind spelled four words: THE FISTS OF KORHAL.

Outside, Tak communicated with Chief. "Bingo."

Milliseconds later, an explosion ripped through the building, taking with it all the nuclear stores of the Morian Government. The only thing that was left was the bloody words on the floor.

**Trowitch, Moria**

The single Arclite M-65A2 Rhino Siege Tank rolled through the rubbled filled streets of Trowitch slowly. Like the clanky, noisy tanks of _Wehrmacht_ in Ancient Earth history, during the fight for Stalingrad, the tank traveled through the street unaware of the next ambush, as it crushed decomposing corpses and concrete. The only thing hiding the crew of five from a death of flying metal was metal. In a tank, shut off from its surroundings, men could ignore the reality of the stench and bloodshed in war.

Moria was in shambles, as ravaging armies left its once powerful economic strength in shambles, and as the mining factions previously under its iron grip faltered, realizing prosperity was only out of reach because of the Morian Government. Kelanis, the most powerful of the mining factions, was the first one to break out, as its mining factories were converted into armories, its miners into soldiers. Trowitch was only one of the mining cities that was falling out of Moria reach.

But not before the Morian IX Corps reached the city.

And as Kelanis and Moria fought, a time bomb ticked. On the other side of the city, two Goliath Infantry Support Walkers struggled as the rubble made the crossing between two buildings a potential for ambush. Inside one of the gray, decrepit houses, a rebel motioned to another as he put the anti-armor rocket launcher on his shoulder.

"Load."

A single gray, pointed rocket was thrusted into the depths of the insidious weapon. A prelude to a messy death.

Receiving a pat, the rebel fired from a window. The rocket spiraled straight into its target, the lightly armored cockpit of the walker, exploding into the metal brains of the machine. A mélange of gore and metal stained the metal contraption, as the Goliath stopped.

Before the two rebels had the time to slink away from the carnage, the other Goliath stopped, twin autocannons pointed straight into the wall of where the fire had come from. The pilot let a short burst of slugs out, catching the two men in the torsos and stomachs, spinning them around in an unnatural frenzy, falling to the black shadow that covered the building.

A corporal, on a standard MH-88 Vulture Scout Vehicle, waited as its intended prey stopped. The tank that was chasing him was not so stupid enough to fall for the "lure and explode" trick that other Scout Vehicles had so successfully used against heavier armor. The Arclite stopped, readying its cannon to fire. The corporal flicked a switch on the bike. Instantly, three bulbous spider mines, hidden under and close to the tank, unburrowed, exploding in a dense shower of metal fragments and fire. The tank combusted, crew running opening a hatch and streaming out, one by one. Calmly, the Vulture turned around, firing fragmentation grenades, tearing men into pieces of hacked flesh and bone. Four more kills, the corporal mentally noted, as he head back to HQ, deep inside the rubble of the city, to get the four Moria kills etched onto his bike. But he stopped, looking at the wide expanse of darkening sky, as a flame like something out of apocalypse engulfed the sky, expanding towards the ground. A second later, the only thing remaining of the vehicle and the man was charred cinders of flesh and metal, cemented together.


	4. Chapter 4: In Need of a Friend

Chapter 4: In Need of a Friend

**Chau Sara**

"What do you feel, Aragas?"

_A psionic presence weakening about three klicks north of us, Commander._

J.J. sighed. He was afraid Aragas would feel the same weak, small presence, but it was strong enough to launch a cry of help and appeal into Jayce's mind. _A trap? Probably. _

"You want to go?"

_I am not the Centurion leading this mission, Lieutenant Jayce. You are._

The Ghost turned his back against the Protoss, in the cramped VSV, and powered up the hovercycles on the bike.

"Let's go."

Aragas provided the post of a sentry as they traveled to the signal point, and Jakk's mind wandered, looking at the desolate and ruined Sarian landscape. Zerg and some radical terrorist faction were the only things left; the rest was a whirlwind of memories, only real because of the skeletons of cities and humans that roamed the plain. The badlands were deaf to the troubles, gently sloping hills unspoiled even by the decimation of Protoss and Zerg. It was a land only for stoics and ghosts, those untroubled by the death and pathetic nature of humanity on the planet.

As Jayce's eyes blurred into focus, Aragas had already answered his question as he spied the black structure straight ahead. _A ship_, the Protoss said, as a heightened sense of curiosity mixing with readiness for their mission encompassed the Protoss.

"Crashed. UED markings, a _Valkyrie_-class frigate. Looks fairly new because of the smoke. Want to go investigate?"

_Of course, lieutenant._

The bike hummed again, repulsors, glowing light blue, lifted the bike a half a meter off the rough Sarian terrain. With one hand steering the bike, Jayce grabbed the MECH-OP lens from a pocket under the seat of the bike, snapping it on his right eye. Colors and objects changed into a weird array of colors, with the cold metal shaded a tint of blue, while things giving heat produced a light orange. _Useful little gadgets Intelligence gave us._

He was right: it was a new wreak, with smoke billowing out of it and a light, weakening heat signatures inside. Either an engine or a person slowly dying.

"Someone might be alive still," he murmured, almost to himself. They reached the ship in due haste, awed by the massive wreck. Though only holding a crew of five, the _Valkyrie_-class missile frigate held enough AS-9 Halo missiles to cripple a flight of Mutalisks or smash holes in a battlecruiser. The ship, nose crumpled by impact, billowing black smoke, was a black, injured animal on the flat, landscape, voracious with Zerg.

Jayce got off, bike hovering in the air as he jumped off, cocking his 9mm pistol. Humans could be alive, but the possibility of the humans being feasted on by Zerg held a pit of sickness in the Ghost's stomach.

"Cover me, ok? The psionic signals coming from inside could be a sham for ambush."

_Or for capture. Our mission's objectives might lie inside,_ Aragas responded, as he cloaked.

Jayce nodded, and powered himself for the jump to the gaping hole on the ship's side. Closing his eyes, a surge of unnatural energy overcame him, as he jumped twice as high as a normal man could do, neatly and silently landing by the hole, fragments of metal and electronic intestines waving wildly around. A red light appeared as the Agent peered into the abyss. A woman's slim body, and the decomposing remains of another body caught his eye. _Jesus, that girl is still alive..._

He jumped down, careful not the rock the precarious position of the ship anymore than needed. The insides stunk with the gross reminder that humans were as organic and susceptible to the conditions as anyone. But the young lady, a Ghost, Jayce noted with a small surprise, breathed shallowly, as he felt her weak pulse. Her struggle to get out was complicated that one leg was caught between the ribs of the ship.

She was a Ghost, Jayce noted, and she could still be dangerous. Before he could do any attempt to disarm her, one of her hands came up, a pistol suddenly pointed to his head. Weakly, and with obvious pain, she uttered a curse:

"Fuck you."

Jayce could have disarmed her easily, but Aragas was quicker. A hand came up, invisible, to snatch away the gun, and another came to the throat of the Agent, as she let out of small gasp and fainted. The Dark Templar's blades came dangerously close to the woman's throat.

"Aragas! Be careful. She might be useful," Jayce said. Even though she was weak and famished, the unconscious girl was not bad looking. "Let's get her out of her. A UED agent might be useful for intelligence." _Not to mention as a fine date once she realized I saved her life._

Aragas nodded, and poked his head out of his ship. But he didn't get out. Instead, his head ducked inside the interior of the ship, and he looked at Jayce with the utmost sincerity and innocence. _We cannot get out._

"Why not?" Jayce asked, jumping to see the outside for himself. As he did, he caught the slightest glimmer of a creature burrowing outside. Once burrowed, a long patch of earth erupted violently out of the ground, with spikes protruding from out to the Vulture bike. Spike after spike rammed into the metal skin of the hovercycle that was hovering only a few inches off the terrain, puncturing the soft metal and making a useless fragment out of the machine.

"Shit," Jayce muttered. The rescuers had become the marooned.


	5. Chapter 5: The Art of Diplomacy

Chapter 5: The Art of Diplomacy

A patrol of Wraith Superiority fighters forayed the empty space between the Koprulu and the void of a vacuum, the black depth captivating the twinkling stars and lone planets of the universe. The pilots thrusted their blue tipped, t-shaped fighters into this dark depression, each of the four silent mechanical warriors flying perfectly in a box formation.

"Thunder-Captain, Thunder-Captain, this is Thunder-2. My HUD display shows a few anomalies heading towards us two klicks on your twelve. We'll get their transponder information in moment."

"Roger Thunder-2." The Captain of 76th Squadron, nicknamed the "Thunders," pulled his fighter gently to a moderate speed, flicking on a switch to arm his Gemini air-to-air missiles under the tips of his bird's wings, bent at a permanent ninety-degree angle. His HUD showed at least twelve objects heading rapidly towards him. _Asteroids can't move that fast,_ the Captain thought.

"Thunders, arm your missiles, arm your missiles. We have twelve unidentified objects coming this way, proceed with caution and treat with hostility, I repeat-"

Thunder-1 was cut off as one of his wingmates suddenly exploded in a blossom of purple flames, fuel and incendiary ammunition bursting and collapsing into airless space, as another salvo of missiles hit, vanishing any remains of the starfighter.

"Thunder squadron, disengage, disengage and pull up," the Captain said, in a calm voice. He was feeling anything but calm, watching random body parts of his wingmate floating around in space._ Shit._ What the hell were those things that were coming out them? The ships, black and a dull gray, were similar to the Wraiths. The delta wings, forming the frame of the ship, made it look like sharp triangles coming at them. The distinctive t-shaped design of the Wraith was there too, but instead of a burst laser hanging down on the belly of the crafts, they were replaced by insidious missile launchers, each sporting a wicked point of a missile.

But it was what lurked behind the ships that shocked Thunder-Captain into transmitting his last message to the Umojan outpost hundreds of leagues away. A battle fleet: dozens of sinister vessels that spawned hundreds of light ships and fighters. _Holy mother of..._

"Outpost-Alpha, Alpha, we're spotting a massive number of ships near the Umojan border. _Behemoth-II_ battlecruisers and carriers of the-"

The transmission cut off.

**Aboard the **_Hyperion, _**Low Orbit over Umoja**

"I'm not going to form a special operations team with you."

"Are you betting your ass on it?"

Raynor, worn out and tired as he sipped a brew in a styrofoam cup, looked Emperor Mengsk in the eye, without any emotion, only a dull, straight look. Mengsk had never been easy to agree with, but why did the bastard have to be so stubborn even as terrorists threatened to end everything with nukes and a virus?

The leader of Raynor's Raiders looked through the lone porthole in the interrogation room, as the blank, emptiness of space depressed him. The black light was only illuminated by a sprinkling of star dust, planets in the oblivion of the universe. And somewhere was a deranged madman who might wipe out the whole cosmos. And below him, the barren wasteworld of Mar Sara floated: a reminder of what weapons of mass destruction could do.

A young officer knocked, then entered the gray room without permission. He greeted the two men with a sharp salute, fist to heart. _We still need to work on the discipline issues, _Raynor thought.

"Report."

"Commander, the city of Trowitch, Moria has been destroyed by an _Apocalypse-_class missile."

"What!"

Mengsk's wandering eyes flashed to the officer. "When?"

"Only a few standard hours ago," the man said, throwing Mengsk a distasteful look, "but there's more."

Raynor frowned. "Yes?"

"Moria and Kelanis are both claiming the Dominion was the one who launched it. Apparently, a Morian compound was raided a few hours before the nuclear fallout, with the only evidence left behind a message signed in blood by a 'Fists of Korhal' and also a few dead Korhalian Ghost Agents, but they could have been planted there." The officer stopped, remembering his memorized information. "Moria claims that this was a precursor to the attack. Kelanis is temporarily signing a truce with Moria and is now supporting its claim. Apparently, Trowitch was an important city for both of them, and with it destroyed, they are forming an alliance and looking for blood. Apparently, the signatures on the nuke identified it as Dominion, right before it exploded."

The Emperor of the Dominion muttered an almost silent curse, but Raynor's ears picked it out. Sharply, he turned to him, grabbing the rich collar of the man's suit. "You knew all along about this shit, didn't you?"

Mengsk grinned awkwardly. "Not all of it."

Raynor let go of the collar, and looked again at the officer. Dealing with Mengsk would come later. "Anything else?"

"Yes. An Umojan patrol guarding the deep space border of Umojan encountered a scout force from Earth. They were completely annihilated."

"The UED or the Umojan patrol?"

"The Umojan patrol. Their captain's last transmission regarded something about nuclear missiles and a new _Behemoth II-_class battlecruiser."

Mengsk frowned. "How many ships in the patrol?"

"At least twelve."

"Why does that matter to you?" Raynor asked, suspiciously. Mengsk looked back at him unflinchingly. His aloofness was returning.

"The UED has a good tactic of gathering as much intel on the enemy as possible before attacking it. Just before attacking Braxis, we noticed groups of patrol vessels, mostly some of variant of the _Iroquois-_class scout-fighters, flying low and evading our anti-aircraft fire to take detailed pictures of our positions. Their intel, along with Duran, allowed them to sufficiently calculated enough men and armor to take Boralis."

"You're thinking that the UED Remnant is going to launch another attack?"

The young officer cleared his throat. "Sir, we haven't seen these types of vessels before. They are totally new and distinct, and they completely wiped out our ships. What scant information we have concerning them labels their ships not as UED Remnant, but some other Earth fleet."

The commander gave a puzzled, then alarmed look, his unibrow moving comically on his forehead. "Shit, did you say _Behemoth_ or _Behemoth-II_ battlecruisers?"

The officer nodded. "_Behemoth-II._" An unnatural silence gripped all of them, as a thought entered their minds: the new _Behemoth-II_ was designed to carry large, tactical nuclear missiles.

Mengsk voiced a thought. "I guess Earth is trying to finish the job the _first_ UED invasion fleet started."

**Aboard the **_Avenger_**four days from the Koprulu Sector**

"First blood."

Fleet Commander Conrad sat rigidly in his plush chair, in his personal cabin aboard the _Avenger._ As he skimmed through the initial battle reports between fifteen F-121 Specter Interceptor Fighters and a few Wraith vessels of a warring Koprulu Sector faction, he wondered how DuGalle and Stukov, with hundreds of thousands of the best pilots, millions of the most devout and well-trained infantry, and thousands of the finest-crafted ships could lose to such a force of rag-tag humans, Protoss, and Zerg.

"Of course, Commander Conrad." The young woman said, in a standard, white UED Captain's uniform, consisting of a pressed, formal blouse matching her equally white skirt. The UED military's uniforms were designed for formality and practicality, not the flamboyance of the Terran factions. _But then again, something a little more comfortable would be nice_, she thought, wishing her heels weren't so high. They were killing her feet.

"What do you think our next step is, Rosemarie?" Conrad sighed, rubbing his temples before he swallowed two bitter pills. Tensions were building as they inched closer to the wretched system, and the chief medical analyst aboard the ship suggested Conrad take some hypoactive medication before commencing with the bombardment. _Yet the only calm I am getting is from seeing Rosemarie alive and well. _

Rosemarie Desman smiled with a knowing empathy at her old classmate from the Annapolis Naval Academy. How much James had changed after graduating! She had known him for twenty years now, but his appearance and demeanor were much different than the boisterous teenager when they arrived at the Academy.

At forty, Desman was still attractive, age not taking affect on the lineless, tanned face and brown hair. The native from the sunny, country formally known as the Bahamas had gotten the command of a full _Behemoth-_class battlecruiser at the age of twenty-seven, younger than any women _or _men from the ANA. Now, she was commanding a brand new _Icon_-class carrier, the _Jewel of Space._

The third person in the room, pouring himself a glass of Chardonnay, clearing his throat to answer Rosemarie's question.

"Our duty, commander." Political Commissionar Andrew Bertelli looked at the two naval officers with only a slight interest before sniffing the wine, and then taking a delicate sip. "May I remind you our orders from President Stukov? 'Exterminate all life in the Koprulu Sector. All priorities are second to victory.' Does that ring a bell?"

Desman grimaced. After the blunder of having the UED Expeditionary Force wiped out by the Zerg, Terran, and Protoss, there had been a call to make the military more centralized to the government. Stukov implemented the plan by having every military officer in command of more than a hundred men or a capital ship watched by a loyal "Political Commissionar" that reported directly back to Stukov, the Central Government Intelligence, and other groups loyal to the UED government. Even more distressing was that the Commissionar had the right to overturn any officer's orders if he or she did not agree it would contribute to the success of the operation. Several high ranking military officers, including the head of the Defense of Earth and her Colonies, Field Marshal Edward Feydor, had disappeared. The military was no longer a fighting machine, only a center for mindless bureaucrats and politicians.

"We know our duties, Bertelli. Our duties are to the race of Humanity. To preserving our way of life," Conrad said, sighing. His fatigued mind was showing in his speech.

"We cannot blunder forward after the skirmish, Commissionar. The Wraith patrol, although wiped out, was determined to get out their transmission that they undoubtly saw our _Behemoth-II _battlecruisers, as well as the Specter fighters," Desman said, firmly. "If we are to encounter such determined and stubborn resistance during our entrance to the Sector, our mission might not succeed."

"What fighting is to take place there, Captain, if all we do is launch our nukes at every major installation and city the Terran, Protoss, and Zerg inhabit in that damned placed?" Bertelli's brows curled in rage, and his glass of wine slopped on the metallic floor.

"We cannot fire every missile at once, Political Commissionar. Such action would not only result in the destruction of every _Behemoth-II_ we have, all the missiles are not guaranteed to hit a target. This operation more than a week. This, however, leads me to bring up this point- We have seen them fight. If pushed, these Terrans will fight for every centimeter of soil, every house and street. Such determination might lead them to send a force of ships to destroy our fleet if they feel threatened. We need more ships. A substantial force of starships can arrive, in one or two-"

"We cannot," Bertelli bluntly said, interrupting Desman. "This mission must be carried out in rapid succession to succeed. Requesting reinforcements will delay our operation, and the Terrans might strike with us."

"Exactly my point," Desman said.

"Exactly_ our _point," Conrad exclaimed, looking at Desman. His eyes were unconfident that Bertelli was going to accept their idea.

"Bertelli, our fleet, though powerful, could be easily destroyed. We are not even alerting the Occupation Forces, now known as the UED Remnant in Koprulu, that we are coming. _Our_ best estimate is to support us with a substantial battle fleet- Earth can spare them."

The Commissionar shook, his face turning an acidic purple. "The UED Remnant will do their duties. You have not the authority to override me, Conrad. Only Stukov does- the man who ordered the operation. So are you defying orders from your superior?"

Desman wanted to laugh, watching the two men staring at each other, but refrained. Such would destroy the humorous mood at the moment, even though the Commissionar thought it was tense. Bertelli was a fool, and both UED officers knew it. _Will he lead us into a trap? Perhaps..._

Unknown to all them, Protoss Observers were already being sent to the task of watching over their fleet.

**Aboard the crashed **_Bloodwrath_

_Well?_

"Well what, Aragas?"

_What is it that you wish to do about this problem, Jayce?_

The Templar's massive hands, psi-blades off, were gingerly cradling the head of the unconscious Ghost, while Jayce, cradling his gun, raced around and around in his mind, without a solution. A Lurker might not damage the crashed ship very much, but the three of them couldn't get out of it either.

Jayce poked his head outside again. The Lurker was still burrowed, evident by the clods of dirt that were randomly displaced, through the Zerg's hurried digging. As he reached for his gun to aim a shot at the thing, an explosion ripped through the ground, as blood stained dirt mixed with flesh. Filtering out of the ground was a gory mix of organic earth and flesh from the dead Lurker. _What the hell is going on?_

A psionic message immediately came into his mind. _Don't move. _A bore of a sniper rifle, once invisible, filtered before Jayce's eyes as a Ghost, an odd contraption masking his face, decloak. Another Ghost came into view, standing on the bloody stains of the Lurker and raising a heavy gun with a miniature spider mine implanter as its bore. _Hell, what an ingenious way to kill..._

Jayce slowly raised his hands up, as his head pointed downward towards the dark interior of the ship. Aragas and Jayce's eyes met: communication filtered immediately between the two, and Aragas knew what was going wrong. He gently placed the head of the girl on the deck of the lopsided ship, and cloaked, blades extended. The Ghost with the rifle on the head of Jayce looked inside, suspicious. A psionic energy blade sliced his rifle in half, while another penetrated through the soft flesh on the neck of the Agent. He toppled inside.

The other Agent on the ground looked at Jayce, alarmed. Psionically gifted people had a nasty way of alerting others of the same special talent when he or she died by giving off one massive psionic pulse. The other Ghost must have felt it distinctly as Jayce and Aragas had.

A sudden burst of noise erupted. Cloak flapping, the Dark Templar leapt of the hole, as the body of the Ghost fell silently on the ground. The other Ghost yelled, screaming profanities as he raised a pistol, pointed at the invisible enemy. A single shot rang out, echoing through the silent landscape. The Ghost fell, bullet implanted in the middle of his head. Jayce lowered his own sniper rifle, as it let out an exhale of long, sinuous smoke.

Aragas' cloak whirled around.

_You are quick._

Grimly, Jayce answered. "I had to be." He shivered. He had killed men before, no doubt, always in his best interest and never in the best circumstances, but this was the first time he had killed a human that had their own psionic emanations. One quick blast of psionic feedback from the dead Ghost, making his insides gelatinous and his mind wavery. Didn't the Templar feel that?

Reading his thoughts, Aragas nodded. _You have never been to Aiur, Commander Jayce. There, the dead wail at us with their psionic emanations. _He turned, looking at the bleak landscape. _We must leave this place. In a short time. _

Jayce agreed, jumping back into the ship and grabbing the wounded Ghost. Easily, he removed the metal that was squeezing her legs, and cradled her in his arms. _Damn, she's nice looking..._

_Commander! _

"Yeah Aragas, I'm coming," Jayce yelled, struggling to get up the hull of the frigate. _Concentrate_, he thought, closing his eyes. _Jump!_ A sudden boost of energy suddenly seemed to strike him as he went up, out of the hole, psionic energy swirls seeming to whirl around him, propelling him out of the hole. Aragas was nowhere to be seen.

Silently, he put the Ghost on the ground, and called out. _Aragas, where are you? _

_Overhead._

He looked up, and saw a small craft hovering in the air. _It is the Ghosts'. Apparently, they were to investigate the frigate and they ran upon us._

Jayce responded. _Good, let's get hell out of here then. Land the thing, will ya?_

_And our mission, what of it? We have not found any of the evidence Commander Cameron ordered us to find. _

Jakk walked over to one of the Ghosts, and ripped his shirt open. _We've found plenty of evidence. _Tattooed to the corpse was a large, blue "K," with a fist in the background. _Fists of Korhal, Strom's very own posse. _He looked at the craft. _We'll mark this place; that craft has a range of only a few hundred kilometers, so his base can't be far._

The ship landed, an oddly cylindrical shaped craft with long wings; a civilian five seater that was used for commercial/tourist transport. _There is not enough of that infernal fuel that you Terrans rely upon to send us to any friendly planet, Commander._

Jayce put the girl in the ship as soon as the cockpit opened, and then nodded to the Hunter. "I know, man, but there's been a patrol scouting for us; the Vulture bike the Lurker destroyed had a transmitter that sets off an alarm once it's destroyed. They know where to look. All the hell we have to do is get the hell outta here before more of Strom's Ghosts show up."

_Affirmative. Do you want to pilot?_

"Nah, I stick with your Protoss instincts to pilot." Jayce smiled, as he got into the ship, cockpit gently closing.

Repulsors thrusted the ship into flight, flushing the pebbles and dirt beneath into infinity. Slowly, the ship pulled up, and into the air.

Jayce looked back at the barren world, feeling both a comfort and unnatural danger by leaving it. He scanned the ground through his digitized right eye, looking at the surface for any irregularities. He found it, just as Aragas' message echoed into his mind. _Do you see it?_ Aragas called, from the front of the cockpit.

Jayce nodded. One crucial bit of evidence for the weapons of mass destruction they were looking for: an ion cannon, hidden a mound of gravel and dirt; the only thing showing was the bald, gray head of the cannon's top, only thirty miles away from the ship. _Will they fire at us? I can see the turret of the machine sticking out of the dirt._ Aragas said, looking, for the first time, perplexed.

"No. They think we're the two dead Ghosts on the ground. At least, I hope they won't," Jayce whispered. "Jesus, let's get back to Umoja. Intel's going to want to see this." He took several snapshots with the camera inside his eye, concentrating to get the right image to develop for UMI.

An hour later, the _Dauntless_, a _Necromancer_-class light cruiser picked up the small ship.

**Aboard the _Hyperion_**

"Do you see why we need a SPEC-OPS team to do our work now? Armies and fleets can't do the job if we don't know where the baddies are hiding. And armies and fleets are going to get ripped apart if all you need is a few Zerg and a nuke or two to massacre. And besides, you need to clear up this mess with Moria and Kelanis allied against you, to prove you didn't launch that nuke."

Mengsk nodded. The appearance of a second UED fleet, Strom's Fists of Korhal, the recent alliance between Moria and Kelanis, as well as fatigue were all building up on him.

"I see, Jim, but I need to get back to Korhal to organize this. I'll send my best agents for this group you're forming with the Protoss. Wait, the name of the counter-insurgency team, Chimaera. Why is it called that?"

Raynor smiled. "A Chimaera was a fictional ancient Earth beast that was made up of a body of a goat, head of a lion, and the ass of a dragon. Our Chimaera mixes the best agents and special forces of Umoja, Korhal, and the Protoss. All in one team. Umoja's the body, the Protoss are the head, and you're the ass. Get it?"

Mengsk nodded.

_So long as to get you off my back, Raynor._


	6. Chapter 6: CHIMAERA

Chapter 6: CHIMAERA

"Jackson."

"Origura."

"Santos."

"Weisengarder, sir, but you can call me Weiss."

Jakk Jayce shook hands with each of the new members of Chimaera as they assembled on a space platform built above Umoja to receive military and civilian dignitaries from other governments. A small flotilla of Dominion vessels, intermingled with a massive sausage shaped Protoss carrier, and two Umojan _Victory_-class battlecruisers floated above them, giving more formalities to the affair.

The four Dominion representatives, only a fraction of the thirty-two member team of the Dominion Intelligence Forces, (DIF), stood in a line, complete with their red jumpsuits, while a mixture of Protoss representatives, and spies, or _Saragans_, and Umojan Military Intelligence officers stood in an line opposite to the Korhalians.

Cameron introduced herself first, forcefully smiling. She wasn't the only one who didn't like the Korhalians, long regarded as the renegades of the sector. During the Brood Wars, there had been talk on Umojan of invading Korhal and deposing the idiotic terrorist-emperor Mengsk because of his willingness to play both with Zerg, UED, and Umoja against each other while he steadily built his forces.

But now, it was the terrorist turned emperor to be hunting terrorists. And Cameron, old hostilities at bay, would have to work with Mengsk's agents.

"I would like to welcome all those who made it here, today, in these times." She nodded to the Korhalians. The trip had not been easy, especially in their rickety transports, who were easy targets to marauding Zerg. "You all know what we are here for. To end the threat of terror and intimidation in this galaxy. To stop the threat of terrorism." The agents from the Dominion stiffened. Many of them were former members of the Agents of Korhal, the intelligence arm of the Confederate labeled 'terrorists' Sons of Korhal.

A faint smile passed over Camerons' lips again, and she continued to speak. "These are not terrorists who have a reasonable goal. They are madmen, determined—at any cost—to make this galaxy into their Garden of Eden. Unfortunately, this Garden only includes a few hundred people. And we are not part of that group."

Jayce smiled, as a few of the newly arrived agents slackened, looking aloof like their leader, Mengsk. The Emperor had been released from Umojan custody in secret, to secure his throne; otherwise, the Emperor would be quickly deposed if the Korhalians found out he was treated like a common thief at the hands of the Umojans. The crew of the_ Legacy_ had been sworn to silence, and already, teams of Protoss, Umojan, and Dominion forces were working together. Everything seemed ready in place for a strike against Strom, or even the Zerg. But Chimaera was the only team for the job.

_They'll know soon enough how dangerous this is._

_Don't we already?_

Another voice in his head startled Jakk, and he looked at the Korhalians. One of them, a thin, pale, male in a standard Ghost red, formal uniform, nodded to him.

_You are...Akura Origura?_

_Yes, and you are Jakk Jayce._

_You psionic skills are quite formidable if you can penetrate my thought block I set in my mind._

_It was not easy to do._

Jakk turned his attention back to his aunt, as she pointed to him, and Aragas.

"As you can see, already two of Chimaera's operatives has returned from an abortive scouting mission from Chau Sara. However, they did find Strom's base, and evidence of his weapons. Strom knows we're out there to stop him. You've seen how many specially trained, Confederate agents he's brainwashed to join his gang. Chimaera must stop them." She looked at each and every one of them, knowing that every faction here had a different purpose to accomplish, even if all of them were working together. _And any one of them could backstab one another any time._

"Dismissed, all of you. You'll be receiving orders in approximately two hours."

The Ghosts and _Saragans_ walked back into their transports, going to the world of Umoja.

**Raynor's Raiders Compound, Main Headquarters**

**New Providence, Umoja**

_You cannot change the past, Raynor. Nor the future._

Zeratul sat uncomfortably in a Terran's odd contraption, called a chair. The room, a plain bricked compound on the outskirts of Umoja's capital, was lighted well in Umoja's dry climate, air conditioned to suit Terran and Protoss needs, combining futuristic style and taste with an old fashioned, Mar Saran feel with a fireplace.

"You don't think Sarah can be redeemed? Not even if we put all our resources in setting her in this trap?"

_This...Terran, which you call Sarah, no longer has a soul in the body of the Queen of Blades. The only soul in the body of Sarah is twisted, tainted, and malevolent. Without the good. Even this plan cannot redeem a soul. Use our agents and spies and the best of our soldiers for some other task, not this. It is useless. _

"Yeah, well, what if we could've redeemed Matriarch Razagal with this? Bet you wouldn't be saying anything, would you," Raynor shot back.

Zeratul's eye tone changed from a sad blue to a heated sun-orange, holding Raynor's gaze for a second. The marshal looked back, unflinchingly, his hand reaching for his standard 9mm pistol.

_If I could help you, I would, James. If you believe this machine can redeem a spirit, whether Protoss, Human, or Zerg, then, by all means, do what you wish_. A soft _swishing_ of Zeratul's cloak cut off the human commander's voice before he could reply, as the Dark Templar swiftly exited the room, leaving Raynor feeling the slightest bit of embarrassment at the way he had just treated his old friend.

Of course, if his plan worked out, Zeratul would forgive him. If it worked.

**Alpier, Brontes**

While Raynor contemplated, Chimaera was already at work, fighting a silent war against the terrorists as they infiltrated the planets of the sector.

Their first target was Brontes, the birthplace of many of the Fists of Korhal, including Strom himself. On the shady streets of Brontes' largest city, Alpier, Liam Jackson and Suzi Santos walked like a love-struck couple, arms intertwined and looking at each other with hazy expressions.

"Good acting," Akura Origura murmured, into each agent's ear cavity, where an implant "bug" relayed communications to Chimaera's mobile base on a ship. "You guys would make a fine couple if you two survived, these missions."

"Haha," Santos said, barely moving her lips. "Just get on with the program will you? We're here to complete the mission, not screw each other."

Jackson looked surprised. "We aren't?"

"Okay, okay. That's enough. There's two things you need to look out for here: a gang called 'Fists of Harmonious Righteousness.' The name is pretty ridiculous, but the people whose in it aren't. They're all Strom's gang. His agents, sent here. Apparently, they're looking for some nukes Brontes' government stored here after they broke away from the Confederacy."

"Isn't everyone." Jackson and Santos neared the intersection.

"Tell me what we're doing here again?" Santos asked. "This place gives me the creeps."

"Exactly why you're here. This is Fists' rat-hole on Brontes, and before we can get to him, we have to scout out his place. There's a little cafe that recently opened up here called Lion's Gate. Intel has pointed out it's the meeting place for numerous triads on Brontes, which provides its own intelligence and help for finding and buying weapons, including nukes. And what-ya-know, Strom's probably there. Just get there and order some Khaf and look around. I'll do the rest."

**Aboard the _Eye of Umoja_**

As Origura watched them round the corner and stop by the cafe, Jayce came down from the bridge of the small intelligence craft, the _Eye of Umoja_, and into the room, brightly lit by dozens of monitors and intelligence equipment. They were orbiting in synchronization with an asteroid which was circling Brontes, pulled into its gravitational field. Darkly painted the _Eye_ would ward off any patrols or starships. Many of the factional government of Koprulu were suspicious of each other as much as they hated Zerg, and even a relatively peaceful and diplomatic Umojan government was suspect for backstabbing.

_But,_ Jakk thought, looking through the one small porthole at the desolate darkness outside,_ if we were caught, we'd be dead meat for any of the four groups operating in Brontes: UED Remnant, Zerg, Brotean Allied Government, or Strom. _

"I'd agree with you there, sir," Origura said.

Jayce nodded his head at the Dominion Ghost.

"Your psionic skills are very impressive."

"Just the skill that allow me to read others' minds. You should see me trying to cloak with my Suit on. Like watching an Ursadon on Korhal. Doesn't go together."

J.J. managed a grin before turning back to the monitors. "They're by the cafe, outside on the pavilion Ordering some Khaf. Does Brontes have a good brew?"

"Not since the Zerg arrived."

"Wait, turn left shoulder camera to the right and zoom. There's someone in the cafe who looks like he's watching them."

**Alpier, Brontes**

Jackson sat nervously outside, in the patio of the Lion's Gate. To his left and right, the long downtown street, with its hip restaurants, cool clubs, and fashionable clothing stores looked anything but a triad and terrorist hangout. _But what a perfect place that the Brontes authorities would never suspect,_ he thought. _Triads and terrorists on the busiest street, scheming to get a few of the government's own nukes. _

He tried to stick with the formula, tried to look love struck at the other agent, Santos, while she did an excellent job, as they waited for the waiter to bring them cups of fresh brew. He smiled at her, a weak impression compared to her infatuous gazing, and then lowered his right arm underneath the table, wincing at the gun that wasn't there at his side. He felt safer with it. Reluctantly, he reached out to touch her hand.

Through the corner of her mouth, she whispered something to the other agent. "Looks like a nice place. My scanners aren't picking up any bugs or surveillance equipment on the building's front. Origura?" A whisper in her left ear implant confirmed a no.

**Aboard the _Eye of Umoja_**

"But I'm still checking," Origura said. "There's something oddly not right. Lemme check-"

A low buzzing noise, barely audible from the muffling of Jackson's jacket, came from his left shoulder. Underneath, a camera, slim and flexible, like a worm, moved to get a closer look at the man inside the cafe watching, sipping a cheap beverage but watching the two agents. With a shaven head, pierced nose, and goatee, Origura noticed he heavily fit the profile of one of Strom's "Fist" members.

Jackson's nervous voice came back into Origura's ears. "Say we get some evidence that this place is where the triads and the Fists are dealing. What are we gonna do? Bring the evidence to Brontean Government? Or actually go in there and clear the rat-hole?"

Origura opened his mouth to answer, but Santos broke him off.

"Shit, we've got two police authorities coming in. Looks like their looking for someone too; not a normal patrol."

Jayce turned his head from another monitor to instruct the two agents what to do.

**Alpier, Brontes**

Abruptly, a low buzzing sound filled Jackson's body. The sound of a third psionic presence.

Thing happened in a blur.

Santos stared wide-eyed at the other Korhalian agent as a message filled his mind, calmly pronouncing their doom.

_Whatever intel you come from, you're the sloppiest bunch we've seen yet. Please fuck off. _

The two police officers spotted the agents, and then started running towards them.

A man, sitting alone in a trench coat at a table, rose, his face strangely contorted with a calm expression that didn't match his eyes as they seemed to rattle back and forth with terror.

He flashed what was bulging underneath his clothes, as bystanders screamed and started running. Strapped to his coat were row after row of spherical object shaped like pineapples: grenades. One of his hands pulled at a cord on his coat, as a marionette on strings.

Jackson flew to the ground, Santos at his side, as blood sprayed from the fountain of deafening explosions shook the crowded street corner. The worm camera underneath his jacket caught one last sight at the Lion's Gate, its front window shattered, bald headed man gone.

**Raynor's Raiders Compound, Main Headquarters**

**New Providence, Umoja, three days later**

"I still don't get it."

Three men and a Protoss male stood in the room, staring at the three holoview screens. One showed news coverage of the bombing, a hole ripped in the patio of Alpier, Brontes, where two Chimaera agents had been close to, carnage and casualties of the blast still everywhere. Another replayed the gruesome image of a man, loaded with explosives, blowing himself up. Another screen showed the mysterious person staring from the window of the cafe.

"What don't you get, J.J?"

"Strom's intentions. He has most, if not all, of every factions' store of nukes and other terror weapons. The thing is, he's not using them against the Dominion like he threatened he would."

Raynor nodded his head in agreement.

"No, he's not. He doesn't need to." Running a hand through his non-existent scalp, he sighed, wondering how he should explain this.

"There's a little something called politics that's involved in this, kid. I think Strom's clever enough now to realize that nukes and biological weapons are best saved for last, because of the Dominion's situation. Mengsk is on politically unsound grounds after the destruction of the UED Fleet under DuGalle. Most of his empire that he started out with jumped off the bandwagon. Brontes, Dylar IX, Braxis...they were all under the Dominion before the UED took over, and once they saw their chance to form their own autonomous governments, they took it."

The former marshal of the Confederacy slowly traced the words crawling on the bottom of the Koprulu Network News channel, an independent news agency. "Look at the what it says. _Brontes terror bombing a long string of attacks believed to be connected with the Dominion._"

"And really, in the other terrorist attacks, with the fallout on Trowitch, with the destruction of the Moria nuclear compound; all of these were linked with Korhalian agents. The theft of the nukes too, have been linked with the Dominion, even though Mengsk is claiming their own private nuclear stores have now vanished. We're not getting any information on this thefts though, because these governments are largely embarrassed with the poor security that led to these heists, and telling the public would mean panic."

Jayce nodded. _Santos and Jackson were both Dominion agents, and since Chimaera is a 'shadow organization' that no one knows about, these factions believe Korhal is behind it, so their paranoia makes them claims that Korhal wants to reel them back in, when I don't think Mengsk is even considering claiming mineral rights anymore._

McAllen and Zami listened quietly before Jayce piped up.

"And so even though Strom's behind these attacks, the factions only link them to Korhal. And once more things are linked to Mengsk, they're going to declare war on Korhal and destroy it. Political subterfuge on Strom's part. He doesn't need to kill; Brontes, Moria, the Guilds...they're doing it for him without really comprehending what's going on."

McAllen nodded. "And even though Umoja has been, in history, a neutral protectorate, we're as deep in the muck as Mengsk. If he falters and decides to tell about our secret intelligence sharing scheme, or if the UMI leaks out about Strom, the factions aren't going to believe it and are going to turn Umoja on the same side as Korhal."

Raynor spoke up again after watching the suicide bomber explode on the screen. "Which is why Minister Hamline has no choice but to close down Chimaera if they don't complete a successful mission. Face it: the bombing of Trowitch couldn't be stopped, but Chimaera is being made look bad for the destruction of the Morian facility and this suicide bombing they failed to stop. Military officials and the few politicians who know about Chimaera are criticizing its failures."

Jayce turned to the holoscreen.

"And now the UED Remnant and Brontes are joining in what Moria and Kelanis started. They've called for the Dominion to be punished for their actions, pay full and immediate amenities to the victims."

McAllen turned to the third in the room. "Anything else, Zami?"

_Nothing, Commander McAllen_, the ancient Protoss warrior rumbled. _The _Saragans_ report that no Zerg activity is starting, except for their usual movements. We haven't seen a large build-up in many moons. _

"And what about the two agents in Brontes at the time of the bombing?"

"They were captured, of course. In military prison getting interrogation. Both are obviously Dominion Agents, so the Dominion is being blamed even more for this attack. They're not being treated as war prisoners either, but criminals. Korhal's diplomats on almost all other planetary governments have been given the boot."

"Mengsk must be going nuts. Two incidents that unite three Sector governments together, ready to topple the Dominion once and for all."

"Moria just moved their Eighth Sector Fleet into Dominion space. And other factions have threatened to impose a planetary blockade of the Dominion."

Raynor sighed again, tiredly running through the political and military maneuverings of the factions. Complicating things were the UED and Strom. He shook his head, feeling his thoughts sloshing together. As much as he tried to avoid being a leader and politician, those two jobs had quietly controlled his life.

"Before Umoja can shut down Chimaera, we have one last chance to prove we're worth the effort." He nodded to Jayce. "Commander McAllen will talk to you about your next, and hopefully not last, mission." The two Ghosts nodded in reply, exiting the room.

"Now, time to figure out who the hell that suicide idiot was," Raynor said, turning around to Zami. Flicking all vides but the one that showed the dead man, Raynor watched intently, his face close to the screen, as if peering closer would reveal something.

"What's strange is this guy doesn't match the profile of any member in Strom's posse. I highly doubt he was a Ghost too, so he couldn't be the one who gave off the psionic signal Jayce said he felt. I'm guessing that was the man behind the window pane."

The dead man was not a Ghost; it was one of the few things McAllen, Cameron, and Jayce had rule out. No organization, no matter how many psionic operatives they had, would waste a Ghost on a suicide mission. They were worth a regiment of troops or a battlecruiser.

From his back Zami shifted slightly. To an ordinary observer, this would have been given no thought, but Raynor knew his _Jashas_ Dark Templar friends well. Zami would have stood motionless unless some excitement or surprise moved him, however slight.

Raynor turned to face him.

"Whatcha got?"

_Replay it, Commander._

Raynor nodded. The man's remains, in a grotesquely humorous way, flew back together, whole, as his chair and table simultaneously came back in one piece. People strewn on the ground were back on their feet as the vid backtracked, their nonchalance apparent before the grenades detonated.

_Who would've thought those people would be mangled a second later?_ Raynor wondered.

The man was calmly sipping his _cha_ now, looking around. Santos and Jackson could be heard talking at another table. And then...

He almost missed it; the others certainly did, since Zami had just caught it.

The man's eyes. They unnaturally twitched, rolling every which way in a disgusting manner, as in a frantic and brief struggle seconds before the man blew himself up.

Raynor couldn't watch anymore. He closed the vidscreen, turning to his friend.

"I see it now. But what does it mean?"

_Psionic waves can manipulate the brain waves of species many paces way. This man did not voluntarily shatter himself; he was--_" The voice translator at Zami's thought took a second before the word came into Raynor's mind. _He was brainwashed. _


	7. Chapter 7: Unexpected Visits

Chapter 7: Unexpected Visits

Jakk Jayce, director of the Chimaera Interplanetary Intelligence Corp, stood hands clasped on the small of his back, staring through the window pane and into the quarantined patient's room in the Nebula Military Hospital. Outside the room, standing in the long, depressingly clean and fluorescently lit corridor, two fully equipped and uniformed Chimaera members, guns at ready, stonily stared at the wall opposite to them. A _Saragan_ agent in the dark blue robes of his tribe walked towards Jayce, nodding to one of the Ghosts. The man returned the nod.

"Can't see why she's worth tying down two intel operatives for sir," George Weisengarder asked. "She's UED Ghosts Ops, but it doesn't look like she's going to be anywhere fast."

_The prisoner who escapes is one who has unwary guards,_ Zami thought. Weiss smiled and moved on, saluting to Commander McAllen as he strode down the corridor.

"How is she, JJ?" he asked, a grandfatherly smile on his face.

"Doing fine enough for a person whose survived a crash landing with two corpses right besides her, sir. I gather you have something to tell me?"

"Chimaera will be shut down by the UMI if it doesn't proves something. Fingers are starting to point to some shady Umojan/Korhalian undercover work for the responsibility of the suicide bombing. The Minister has no choice but to order it inoperative if our little clique can't prove ourselves."

The younger Ghost agent sighed. "I figured as much. Thing is, we're trying to keep a helluva lot of tabs on Kliven Strom's groupies. He's got a hundred Ghosts running between this goddamn sector, and the political unrest he's causing requires more agents than I've got to deal with."

_No more of my _Saragans_ can be spared, my friend. We have our own intelligence scurrying to uncover anymore of the Zerg's doings, _Zami telepathically communicated to the human agents.

Jayce nodded grimly. "I thought that would be so. It's okay, Praetor Zami. Aragas and the others are doing fine working with Chimaera now. For the time being."

"Don't take it so harshly, Jayce. Your team still has another chance to prove themselves."

"Just as long as we don't have to get in the way of another brainwashed suicide bomber."

"No. You're going over to Char to cover Kerrigan if Strom tries to kidnap her."

"Are you fucking joking? Excuse me, Commander."

McAllen held the young commander's gaze for a moment, and then smiled. "Last I heard from you, Chimaera is running out of options and time. Minister Hamline has reluctantly agreed that this interplanetary intelligence agency can try to its worth one last time before he cuts it off."

"Why would Strom do it now?"

"See the chaos he's created, JJ? He can keep up with it, but why continue? His dream is to quickly destroy all of the things he deems unworthy of existence, and the quickest way is through Pandora. He will try to capture Kerrigan, if he can manage it. Chimaera has to counter this and try to capture Kerrigan at the same time."

"That's...impossible. No one's ever do it, how do you expect a bunch of Ghosts to do what a whole UED armada couldn't?"

"No one's ever grouped that many Ghosts together though, JJ. Not even the UED, which wasted its operatives in one-man missions to sabotage the Dominion. The Dominion used their Ghost Corp for the same reason. No one's ever thought about using Ghosts, grouped together, to do this."

Jayce nodded, however faintly. "If you say so sir. How many operatives can do I get?"

"We're pulling back all Chimaera operatives from any operation and replacing them with normal Umojan Military Intelligence Agents. You'll be outnumbered by Strom's one hundred or so Ghosts, you'll be able to handle it."

"And getting in..." Jayce trailed off. If there was one unfortunate thing about the location of the Zerg base of operations in Char, it was the thin atmosphere surrounding it, making it susceptible to a daily showering of meteorites. Getting in a handful of men would be no problem.

"Same way you and Aragas got into Chau Sara. By meteorite."

"Anything else, sir?"

"One. Just a briefing and the information has nothing to do with your operation, but we've gotten word of another UED fleet that's going to be in the Sector."

"Odd, that was fast. They must've followed the first fleet."

"Maybe. It's a relatively small force than what they sent last time, though a few of the ships are equipped with long range nuclear missiles. The military has sent the nearest force, an expeditionary fleet under Sarius to the outskirts of the Sector where they are entering to counter them."

"Bella Sarius? The one who raped the UED fleet trying to invade Umoja?"

"To put it in a obscene way, yes."

**Koprulu Edge Space**

**Aboard the _Pathfinder_**

Fleet Admiral Bella Sarius watched the two starfighters escorting her battlecruiser zip past bridge of the _Victory_-class vessel, circling around the slim, flat arrow-headed ship and return to their positions after scanning the vessel's perimeter. Trailing behind the flagship were two antiquated _Juno_-class escort carriers, with a litter of frigates and corvette size ships surrounding them. Sarius had never understood the concept of naming something an escort carrier that had escorts of their own.

"Contact?"

"Nothing ma'am," the detection officer replied, with a faint trace of weariness in his curt answer. Of course, he had a right to be tired, the way Sarius was driving them. She was a bit fatigued herself, as the fleet arrived from a straight thirty-two hour drive to reach the BRAVO rendezvous point. "Communications, get the rest of our vessels in standard positions; I want all pilots and off-duty personnel well rested. Launch a flight to scout this area."

Another complement of crew, fresh from rest, took over for the weary officers on the deck. Explorations fleets were like that, Sarius thought. Odd. _Never thought I'd have a deck with two shifts of officers. Never thought I would have to defend Umojan with a bare essentials of an aging fleet._

She stared at the spacial miles that surrounded them, the vast and infinite amount of space. There was a line on the holomaps that showed where the Koprulu ended, and where the vastness of space took over. But there was no line in reality, no wall, no boundary. Space was endless.

But where she was now was the place the UED would try to enter, and staring in front of her, there was an invisible line. A line that the UED could not cross.

_Just one more to go, Bell. Hang in there. _

Her Umojan Expeditionary Fleet had just finished mapping the unknown region bordering the Sector when an urgent message ordered her ships to move towards point BRAVO to counteract the threat of another UED invasion, this time armed with nukes. She was to be reinforced with the First Defense Task Force, under Admiral Pio Luska, who would be arriving shortly.

Hopefully, they would arrive soon. Her replacement crew was only half-trained, newly commissioned officers fresh out of the Umojan Naval Center. Her only worthy capital ship was her own, and the _Pathfinder_'s shields would not last long under a constant bombardment of ATD and ATM batteries of the _Behemoth II_'s. The _Juno_ escorts had been reactivated from the decommissioned shipyards, relics of the Guild Wars. They carried a motley crew and only half their complement of seventy-two Wraith Superiority Fighters. Even worse, many of the fighters were not upgraded, lacking cloaking fields. Taking on even one _Behemoth II_ battlecruiser, let alone half a dozen, would be suicidal with this expeditionary fleet.

That was what they were. A peaceful, albeit well-armed, exploratory fleet.

Sarius was on her last mission for the Umojan Naval Defense Forces, after an illustrious career, being the first generation of women cadets at the UNC. It was controversial, sending women to fight in a male dominated profession, and Umoja, considered by many the most democratic of the Koprulu factions, debated long and hard about whether to allow women into the armed forces. Umoja's legendary neutral status had made it the "America of the Koprulu Sector," a comparison to an modern Earth nation that had disappeared. The Umojan Military tried hard to live up to this title, participating in both inter-sector PKOs—peacekeeping operations—as well as defending Umojan's neutrality with the best military hardware.

But that neutrality could not be kept by a population of dwindling young males and a volunteer based recruitment program.

The Symposium of Umoja, where lawmakers met, debated fiercely, with the left wing shouting their traditional opinions on equal rights for both sexes, and the right wingers confusingly opposing women in the military.

This had changed in the Guild Wars, when the mobilizations of Moria and the Confederacy made Umoja realize they needed all the men- and women- they could get.

Sarius was one of these women, a perky, stout girl whose blonde hair could not be stereotyped with the 'dumb blonde.' She was anything but what her hair suggested, with a cunning mind and a calm, relaxing manner. Her first command, a _Pacifier_-class corvette, showed her placid manner, even though her ship was exploding under the bombardment of five pirate vessels during a patrol run into unknown territory. She had outmaneuvered the enemy, instantly grasping their weakness and smashing through their formation with her guns periodically blasting at their ships.

That had been almost twenty years ago.

She was called 'Bell' by her colleagues, though most described her, albeit raunchily, as the 'Horatio Nelson with a vagina.' She had found it as a sign of respect and acceptance in a male dominated Fleet.

Like Commander Cameron, she was one of the primary defenders of Umoja when 'Operation Thunderstrike' commenced by UED Task Force Five, under Fleet Admiral Takai Ming-ju, began. The UED Expeditionary Fleet had launched this task force to capture all of Umojan within a few weeks of initial attacks. Most planetary captures of a single planet could take months or a few years. But 'Thunderstrike' failed because of Bell Sarius. On the flagship of the Defense Force, the _Protector of Peace_, with the Fleet Admiral wounded, Sarius took charge and took the brunt of a hundred ship UED attack. With her wily tactics, she crippled the fleet and delayed, for several months, both the landing attacks launched by the UED. It had also delayed the attack on Dominion, much to many Umojans' dismay.

But her name was etched forever with the symbol of victory for the citizens of Umoja, as with other military leaders: Nelson, Washington, Grant, Napoleon, MacArthur. A woman had joined their ranks.

And she was expected to live up to her legend here.

The detection officer of station number five looked up from his position. "Approaching ships, Admiral."

"Vector?"

"Alpha-Delta Zero-Nine."

Sarius turned around. "From our rear?"

"Yes, admiral. ID lists them as...UED Remnant."

"Weapons?"

"Cold, Admiral. I don't think their looking for a squabble."

Communications at station one poked her head from a monitor. "Rear Admiral Lewis Jonson of the _Canberra_ is requesting permission to speak with you, ma'am."

"Alright. Standby, weapons, shields, pilots. We'll call you if we need you. Comms, bring the Admiral on screen."

A image flickered and settled on the massive screen to the side of the bridge, and the young face of Rear Admiral Jonson politely saluted to his counterpart. The UED had lost many of its senior officers during the slaughter by Kerrigan's Zerg, and the UED Occupying Forces found had to find quick, but younger replacements, for the battered remnants of their fleet.

"Admiral Sarius. My regards, admiral. I was on the _Jakarta_ during Thunderstrike."

Sarius smiled. She had many enemies, but her respect was often shown by enemies and friends.

"Thank you, Admiral Jonson. I believe you are not planning to attack us?"

Jonson hesitated, his blue eyes shifting a little. Technically, UED Remnant and Umoja were still at war, since there was little time or safe place for all leaders of the governments of Koprulu to meet and arrange a permanent cease-fire. But they had little reason to fight, and both shared a common enemy.

"Yes, Admiral. No doubt you've noticed our weapons are off and shields down."

He still had not stated why he was here. _I guess he wants me to ask him._

"Your purpose?"

The young admiral hesitated. "Matters of a certain delicate nature. I presume you are waiting for the arrival of the second UED force?"

"Yes. We will deter them, with force if necessary. They have not stated their intention for arriving here, again. That is why I am a little edgy about have you on the rear."

"Our intentions towards your fleet is harmless, admiral. We wish to rendezvous with this UED force as well."

"Why?"

Jonson's face became stone, his lips hardly moving as he spoke.

"I am instructed by my superior to only say that they too, have not stated their intention for arriving here to _us._"

He put a peculiar emphasis on his last words, and Sarius frowned. "Let me meet with my captains to discuss this."

Jonson nodded. "Of course, admiral." His image flickered off.

"Communications, contact Captain Yuris of the _Guardian_ and Captain Alvarez of the _Protector_." She referred to the two escort carriers captains guarding her ship.

"Yes, admiral."

Sarius turned her attention to the screen showing the UED forces. Monolithic _Behemoth_ battlecruisers, in a standard and precise formation of the UED style. And yet, those ships showed signs of wear and repair; many were probably fresh from repair jobs from the UED defeat near Char. What purpose were they here for?

"Done, admiral."

A stout man with a mustache and beard appeared first on the screen, and then another image of a grim man with dark eyes. "Morning, Admiral Sarius!" The stout man said with more jolliness than he could have felt.

"Good day, Captain Yuris, Captain Alvarez. We have a situation here."

"My fighters, all of them, are currently deployed in the asteroid belt near here, scouting for any other enemy," Alvarez replied.

"As are mine, admiral. Shall we alert them for attack?"

"No. You heard Jonson, he's not here to attack, he wants to wait to see what the new Earthlings do. It seems like Earth hasn't bothered to contact their remaining forces here."

"Which is undoubtedly strange. Perhaps a ploy, for our forces to be confused." Yuris persisted. "I can have my fighters out of the belt and have those ships on fire in ten minutes, Admiral."

"No, Yuris. They have the sufficient firepower to destroy all of our ships easily." She motioned to the screen of waiting UED Remnant ships. Six _Behemoth_ battlecruisers, three _Reliant_ class carriers, and fourteen _Ankara_ class frigates. A substantial fleet. But why so many ships, and why was there a communications fault between their forces?

_What is this second UED fleet up to?_ _Could Jonson be lying? _Her gut-feeling told her that he was not. The UED, though bastards, were professional and reliable. They would not use treachery in the Sector because they felt that they needed to demonstrate a superiority over the factions of Koprulu.

"This Remnant fleet is not here to trick us," she said quietly to her two captains. "They're here to observe something strange, as we are. Let the Wraiths remain in the belt. We'll send the _R-56_ out to refuel them. Until our third party arrives," she nodded to them, "good luck, and Godspeed."

They saluted and flickered out, while the image of Jonson came back on.

"Well, Admiral?"

"It looks like we'll both be waiting for something, Admiral."

"Very well, Admiral Sarius. My fleet will be moving twenty spacial miles from your ships." He smiled, briefly. "It may be that we will have much in common before this...incident is over."


End file.
